“My own Eye!” said Merur. “I have need of you!”
Het could not restrain her anger, even in the face of the One Sovereign of Nu. “I count four Eyes in this court, Sovereign—those three over there, and the Noble Dihaut. There have always been four. Why should you need me to be a fifth?” Behind her, Great Among Millions made a tiny noise.
“I shed one body,” admonished Merur, her voice faintly querulous, “only to reawaken and find you gone. For decades you did not return. Why? No one accused you of any dereliction of duty, let alone disloyalty. You had suffered no disadvantage; your place as my favored Eye was secure. And now, returning, you question my having appointed someone to fill the office you left empty! You would do better to save your anger for the enemies of Nu!”
“I can’t account for my heart,” said Het crossly. “It is as it is.”
This seemed to mollify Merur. “Well, you always have had a temper. And it is this very honesty that I have so missed. Indeed, it is what I require of you!” Here Merur lowered her voice and looked fretfully from one side to the other, and the standards and flower-form servitors scuttled back a few feet. “Het, my Eye. This body is . . . imperfect. It will not obey me as it should, and it is dying, far sooner than it ought. I need to move to a new one.”
“Already?” Het’s skin prickled with unease.
“This is not the first time a body has grown imperfectly,” Merur said, her voice low. “But I should have seen the signs long before I entered it. Someone must have concealed them from me! It is impossible that this has happened through mere incompetence.
“I have dealt with the technicians. I have rooted out any disloyalty in Tjenu. But I cannot say the same of all Hehut, let alone all of Nu. And this body of mine will last only a few months longer, but no suitable replacement, one untampered with by traitors, will be ready for a year or more. And I cannot afford to leave Nu rulerless for so long! My Eyes I trust—you and Dihaut, certainly, after all this time. The Justified are for the most part reliable, and the single-lived know that Dihaut will judge them. But I have never been gone for more than a few days at a time. If this throne is empty longer, it may encourage the very few wayward to stir up the single-lived, and if, in my absence, enough among the Justified can be led astray—no. I cannot be gone so long unless I am certain of order.”
Dismayed, Het snarled. “Sovereign, what do you expect me to do about any of this?”
“What you’ve always done! Protect Nu. All trace of unrest, of disorder, must be prevented. You’ve rid Nu of rebellion before. I need you to do it again.”
That shining silver river, the fishers, the lilies and birds had all seemed so peaceful. So much as they should be, when Het and Dihaut had flown in. “Unrest? What’s the cause this time?”
“The cause!” Merur exclaimed, exasperated. “There is no cause. There never has been! The worthy I give eternal life and health; they need only reach out their hands for whatever they desire! The unworthy are here and gone, and they have all they need and occupation enough, or if not, well, they seal their own fate. There has never been any cause, and yet it keeps happening—plots, rumors, mutterings of discontent. My newest Eye”—Merur did not notice, or affected not to notice, Het’s reaction to that—“is fierce and efficient. I do not doubt her loyalty. But I am afraid she doesn’t have your imagination. Your vision. Your anger. Two years ago I sent her out to deal with this, and she returned saying there was no trouble of any consequence! She doesn’t understand! Where does this keep coming from? Who is planting such ideas in the minds of my people? Root it out, Het. Root it out from among my people, trace it back to its origin, and destroy it so that Nu can rest secure while my next body grows. So that we can at last have the peace and security I have always striven for.”
“Sovereign of Nu,” growled Het. “I’ll do my best.”
What choice did she have, after all?
She should have gone right to Dihaut. The first place to look for signs of trouble would be among the Animas of the recently dead. But she was still out of sorts with Dihaut, still resented their summoning her back here. They’d made her share their company on the long flight back to Hehut and never mentioned that Merur had replaced her. They might have warned her, and they hadn’t. She wasn’t certain she could keep her temper with her sib, just now. Which maybe was why they’d kept silent about it, but still.
Besides, that other Eye had doubtless done the obvious first thing, and gone to Dihaut herself. And to judge from what Merur had said, Dihaut must have found nothing, or nothing to speak of. They would give Het the same answer. No point asking again.
She wanted time alone. Time that was hers. She didn’t miss the cold—already her thick fur was thinning without any conscious direction on her part. But she did miss the solitude, and the white landscape stretching out seemingly forever, silent except for the wind and her own heart, the hiss of blood in her ears. There was nothing like that here.
She left Tjenu and walked down to the river in the warm early-evening sunlight. Willows shaded the banks, and the lilies in the occasional pool, red and purple and gold, were closing. The scent of water and flowers seized her, plucking at the edges of some memory. Small brown fishing boats sat in neat rows on the opposite bank, waiting for morning. The long, sleek shape of some Justified Noble’s barque floated in the middle of the channel, leaf green, gilded, draped with hangings and banners of blue and yellow and white.
She startled two children chasing frogs in the shallows. “Noble,” the larger of them said, bowing, pushing the smaller child beside them into some semblance of a bow. “How can we serve you?”
Don’t notice my presence, she thought, but of course that was impossible. “Be as you were. I’m only out for a walk.” And then, considering the time, “Shouldn’t you be home having dinner?”
“We’ll go right away,” said the older child.
The smaller, voice trembling, said, “Please don’t kill us, Noble Het.”
Het frowned, and looked behind her, only to see Great Among Millions a short way off, peering at her from behind a screen of willow leaves. “Why would I do such a thing?” Het asked the child. “Are you rebels, or criminals?”
The older child grabbed the younger one’s arm, held it tight. “The Noble Het kills who she pleases,” they said. The smaller child’s eyes filled with tears. Then both children prostrated themselves. “How fair is your face, beautiful Het!” the older child cried into the mud. “The powerful, the wise and loving Eye of the One Sovereign! You see everything and strike where you wish! You were gone for a long time, but now you’ve returned and Hehut rejoices.”
She wanted to reassure them that she hadn’t come down to the river to kill them. That being late for dinner was hardly a capital offense. But the words wouldn’t form in her mouth. “I don’t strike where I wish,” she said instead. “I strike the enemies of Nu.”
“May we go, beautiful one?” asked the elder child, and now their voice was trembling too. “You commanded us to go home to dinner, and we only want to obey you!”
She opened her mouth to ask this child’s name, seized as she was with a sudden inexplicable desire to mention it to Dihaut, to ask them to watch for this child when they passed through judgment, to let Dihaut know she’d been favorably impressed. So well-spoken, even if it was just a hasty assemblage of formulaic phrases, of songs and poetry they must have heard. But she feared asking would only terrify the child further. “I’m only out for a walk, child,” she growled, uncomfortably resentful of this attention, even as she’d enjoyed the child’s eloquence. “Go home to dinner.”