"I was sick," she found herself explaining to someone. "I didn't mean it."
"Well," a voice answered. "Now he is awake." And then she was, too, sweating in her bedclothes. It took her a long while to get back to sleep.
The next morning she rose, cross. She spoke barely a word to Qey or Tsem, set out for the library more than a little later than she wanted to. It was Wezh's misfortune that he chose that morning to meet her outside of the archive hall.
She clenched her teeth when she saw him, leaning against the wall, his lips moving.
"Probably reminding himself to breathe," she muttered to Tsem.
"The princess isn't feeling very nice this morning," Tsem observed from the corner of his mouth.
Hezhi tried to ignore Wezh, but he actually interposed himself, grinning his vacuous little grin.
"Good morning, Princess," he remarked brightly. "You look radiant this morning."
"Well, so do you," Hezhi answered, surveying his jaunty red hat, felted orange vest, and flower-stippled kilt. "Positively lovely."
"Thank you," he said, pretending to wave her compliment off. "I wonder if I could speak with you for just a moment. Ah, alone," he finished, eyeing Tsem significantly.
Hezhi sighed. "Could you give us a moment, Tsem?"
The half Giant shrugged his massive shoulders and moved off down the hall a short distance.
"My father—" Wezh began, stopped to dab his lips with a kerchief. "My father asked me to invite you to our rooms for dinner this evening," he said.
Hezhi blinked at him. "I'm afraid I can't do that," she replied, trying to be polite.
"Oh," Wezh said, a little perplexed frown on his face. "My man went to see your nurse—what's her name, Hay?—anyway, she said you should be free."
Hezhi trembled with sudden fury. This idiot had sent someone to talk to Qey? He had conspired to see her? She was suddenly sick to death of people arranging her life, planning it, plotting about it. It was as if something broke loose inside her, something red and hot scrambling up her from her gut and into her tongue.
"Darken your mouth!" she hissed. "Leave me alone, do you hear? Do you hear?" She felt a sort of shudder run along her bones, and though her clenched fists never left her sides, she had a sudden dizzying sensation that felt almost as if she had reached out and slapped the little fool. The most startling thing was that Wezh reacted exactly as if he had been slapped. He reeled into the wall, his eyes suddenly glazed, unfocused. Spit drooled down his chin.
"Leave me alone!" she repeated. Wezh sagged against the plas-tered stone, almost fell, and then suddenly ran, unsteadily at first but then with great enthusiasm. In an instant he was out of sight.
Hezhi stood there, astonished. Her body seemed to hum, to vibrate for just a bit longer, and then it was quiet, normal. But she had just done something, she knew. She had done something to Wezh, something more than simply yell at him.
She caught a motion from the corner of her eye and half turned. Tsem was goggling at her, and so was Yen, who must have just come around the corner. Yen averted his staring eyes, then looked back at her.
"What did you say to him?" he asked.
"I…" Hezhi looked back up the corridor, the way Wezh had run. "I guess it was the way I said it," she concluded.
X
The Heart of Water
Hezhi nudged Tsem with her toe; somewhere outside in the night a peacock called, half threat, half plaintive complaint.
"Tsem," she hissed. "I'm going."
The dark bulk rolled over, and large, sleepy eyes caught a ray of moonlight. "I thought we were done with this fumbling around in the darkness, Princess," he grumbled.
"Quiet. I don't want to wake Qey."
"I wish you could extend me the same courtesy," Tsem groused further. He rose, mountainous in the dark.
"I have everything right here," she assured him. "Just get dressed."
Tsem nodded and groped around a bit behind his bed. She couldn't make him out clearly, but the rustle of fabric suggested that he was complying with her command. When he stood up, she handed him the bundle in her hands. "Keep that upright," she warned. "The lantern is in there."
Tsem didn't answer, but shuffled quietly toward the door.
Once outside, he unpacked the lantern and lit it; it would be madness to try to trace even these familiar halls in total darkness. There were no fancy skylights or stained glass here in the old wing. The night sky entered this part of the palace only through the roofless courtyards, and the illumination of star- and moonlight did not diffuse far into the plastered halls.
Tsem's face appeared suddenly in the lamplight, thickened with shadows into the bust of some ancient monster. The monster grimaced and bared its teeth, and it took an instant or two for Hezhi to recognize the expression as a smile.
"Well, don't you look fine,'" Tsem whispered, squinting at her.
"I thought I would change before we went," she answered back.
Tsem nodded. "Well, you wanted to look like a boat caulker, and so you do."
"I need no advice on dressing from you," she replied loftily. "And we should go, before you have to explain to some soldier why you sneaked a little peasant girl into the palace."
"Never fear," Tsem replied. "They would never take you for a girl."
"Huh. Go!"
They threaded through the deserted halls. Hezhi knew where the guards would be, and fortunately they did not have to pass near any. Most, of course, were patrolling the roof, since that was the only sensible way a thief or assassin could break in from the city—should one manage to scale the palace wall, that is, no small feat in itself. Padding softly past a second and then a third suite of apartments, they came at last to the point she had marked on her map. Each major suite—such as her own—had its own courtyard and fountain to provide fresh water. Suites were arranged into compounds—there were seven suites in hers—and most compounds were built generally around a still larger courtyard. These larger courtyards were slightly downhill from the suites, so that waste water could flow through stone trenches to the "sink," a large opening in the center of the yard. Housekeepers brought other things to throw into the sink by hand: kitchen garbage, the contents of toilets, and so on. Hezhi's map showed the sink emptying into the sewers, where the sacred water recirculated, eventually to rejoin the River.
"Princess," Tsem began to protest, but she hissed him into silence.
"It's the best way," she explained.
"I shudder to think what the worst might be," Tsem glumly retorted.
"Hush. I'm a princess, and I'm going into it."
"Not if I don't let you," Tsem replied, a bit of the iron he was named for in his voice.
"Tsem. We have to do this. I have to know what the priests plan for me, and you can't tell me. So I have to see. Unless you know a better way, this is what we are going to do. Or I'll do it alone, if need be, one night while you're asleep. I thought our bargain was still good, or I wouldn't have awakened you."
Tsem was silent for a moment. "It's still good," he admitted.
"Then who goes first?"
"7 will. What shall we fasten the rope to?"
"I thought of that," she replied proudly. She held up a poker stolen from near Qey's stove. "We'll tie the rope in the middle of this, brace it over the sink. Then we can pull it in after us, so no one will know."
"And does your plan explain how we'll get back up?"
Hezhi shrugged. "Throw it back up until it catches again."
Tsem sighed. "That will make a lot of noise. What if someone comes to investigate?"