"I've sent word. He'll come as soon as he can. The Interiors," by whom he meant the few Rankan soldiers still on detail within the palace, "say there was some sort of big Beysib gathering around sunset-some sort of ritual. I don't know if he was involved or not. If he's got to eat with them he may not get here till midnight."
Kama strode to the little window overlooking the stables and a corner of the parade ground. She popped the shutters and leaned out into the night air.
"I'd just as soon you kept the windows closed and stayed out of sight," Walegrin requested, unable to give her a direct order.
An inaudible sigh ran the length of her back. She pulled the boards closed and stared expectantly at him. "I'm your prisoner, then?"
"Damn, woman-it's for your own good. No one's going to think of looking for you here-but I can't keep them out if they get a notion to look. If you've got any close friends you think you'd be safer with you just tell me about them and I'll see that you spend the night there."
Kama had pushed as hard and far as she dared-more from habit than grand design. "Is there any food left below?" she asked in a more civil voice, "or water?"
"Fish stew with fat-back; some wine. I'll send some up."
"And water, please-I'd like to wash before my funeral rites." She flashed the smile that made men forget she was deadly.
Torchholder, still garbed in the regalia he had worn when the Beysa had healed the Stormchildren, came to the garrison barracks flanked by the gravediggers. The diggers demanded to view the body but Molin, once he saw Walegrin's anxiety, dismissed them with a wave of his hand.
"Not before the rites," he snarled contemptously. "Until the spirit is sanctified and released, the impure may not view the remains."
"Ain't no 'Shankan funeral I've ever heard of," the second of the gravediggers complained to his superior.
"The man was an initiate into Vashanka's Brotherhood. Would you risk the Stormgod's wrath?"
The gravediggers, like everyone else in Sanctuary, suspected that the Stormgod was impotent or vanquished but none of the trio was about to say so to a palace nobleman whose power in the simple matters of life and death was not in question. They agreed to return to their posts and await the delivery of the body. Molin watched the door close behind them, then pulled Walegrin back into the shadows.
"What in seven hells is going on here?"
"There's a bit of a problem," the younger man explained, drawing the priest up the stairs. "Someone you should talk to."
"Who've you got-?" Molin demanded as Walegrin knocked once, then shoved the door open.
Kama had put her time and the water to good use. The soot and grime were gone from her leathers and her face; her hair framed her face in a smooth, ebony curtain. Walegrin saw something he did not immediately understand pass silently between them.
"Kama," Torchholder said softly, refusing for the moment to cross the threshold. Throughout the afternoon and into the evening he had forced any thought of her from his mind; had, in effect, abandoned her to fate. He believed she would not have expected, or appreciated, anything else and saw by her face that he had believed correctly-but correctness did nothing to alleviate the backlash of self-imposed guilt which swept up around him.
"Shall I leave?" Walegrin asked, piecing the situation together finally.
Molin started; weighed a dozen responses and their probable consequences in his mind, and said: "No, stay here," before anyone could guess he had considered some other course of action. "Kama, why are you here, of all places?" he asked, closing the door behind him.
With Walegrin's help, she explained her situation. How the PFLS leader. Zip, had misinterpreted her encounter with Stra-ton and Walegrin and how that mistake had started the downward spiral of events which culminated with not merely the attempt on the Stepson's life but the sabotage of all he had tried to accomplish.
Molin, though he listened attentively, took a few moments to congratulate himself. Had he dismissed Walegrin, he would have helped Kama because he loved her-and, in time, she would have rejected him for it. Now, he could help her because he had heard and believed her story before witnesses. She might still reject him-she would always prefer action to intrigue, he suspected-but it wouldn't be through the weakness called love.
"You have two choices, Kama," he explained when both she and Walegrin were silent. "No one would be surprised if you had died today. I could easily see to it that everyone believed that you had. You could take a horse from the stables and no one would ever think to come looking for you." He paused. "Or you can clear your name."
"I want my name," she replied without hesitation. "I'll appeal to the Emperor's justice...." It was her turn to pause and calculate options. "Brachis-" She looked around the room and remembered the Stormchildren, the witches, and the ir-remedial absence of Vashanka. "I'll get the truth out of Zip," she concluded.
Molin shook his head and turned to Walegrin. "Would you believe anything that young man told you?"
Walegrin shook his head.
"No, Kama, maybe if Strat's still alive in there and he says it wasn't you, you'd be believed, but no one else's word will count for enough. You'll do best coming in to face your accusers."
"Under your protection?"
"Under Tempus's protection."
Walegrin broke into the conversation: "He's one of the ones who've ordered her dead!"
"He ordered her captured-the rest is the enthusiasm of his subordinates. He's got caught in another skirmish with the demon-and Roxane:-for Niko's soul. Jihan barely pulled him out and she is, until the next sea storm at any rate, as mortal as you or I. Tempus is in no mood for death right now."
"You're wrong if you think he'd go lightly with me," Kama warned in a low voice. "He acknowledges my existence- nothing more than that. It would be easier for him if I did die."
It cost her to admit that to anyone, stranger or lover. Molin knew better than to deny it. "I'm not interested in making things easier for that man," he said in his own low, measured voice. "He will not dare to judge you himself, so he will be scrupulously honest in seeing that justice is done by someone else."
Kama tossed her hair behind her shoulders. "Let's go to him now."
"Tomorrow," Molin averred. "He has other obligations tonight."
Prince Kadakithis took the tray from the Beysib priest. He was gracious, but firm: no one besides himself was attending Shupansea. It was her wish; it was his wish; and it was time everyone got used to the idea that he gave orders too. The bald priest had seen too much upheaval in one day to argue successfully. He bowed, gave his blessing, and backed out of the antechamber. The prince set the careful arrangement of chilled morsels beside the bed and returned his attention to the Beysa.
Streaks of opalescent powder shot across the bleached white imperial bedlinen. Brushing aside a blue-green swirl, Kadak-ithis resumed his vigil, waiting for her eyes to open and more than half-expecting that he'd made a terrible mistake. He smoothed her hair across the pillows; smiled; dared to kiss her breasts lightly as he'd never dared to do at any of the few other times they'd stolen moments alone together and jerked upright when he felt something move against the back of his neck.
The Beysa ran orchid-colored fingertips down his forearm. "We are alone, aren't we?" she inquired.
"Quite," he agreed. "They've sent food up for us. Are you hungry?"
He reached for the dinner-tray and found himself restrained. Shupansea raised herself up and began dealing with the clasps on his tunic.
"Kith-us, I have two half-grown children and you have had a wife and concubines since you were fourteen. I surrendered my virginity in a ritual that was witnessed by at least forty priests and relations-tell me the first time wasn't just as bad for you."