Once more the Besur glanced toward Lady Hariawan. When Sairu followed his gaze, she could mark no change in her lady’s expression. Why then did she feel as though she could . . . smell? Taste? Hear a smile?
Just then a slave from the Masayi entered the courtyard, dragged behind three small lion dogs straining at their leashes. At sight of Sairu—who was their very light, center, and purpose for being—the trio exploded into yipping chorus, nearly pulling the poor slave off his feet. Sairu smiled again, a smile she saved for her little pack, far lovelier than the smiles she turned upon the rest of the world. She knelt to receive kisses and excited paws clawing at her clothes.
That was when Lady Hariawan spoke: “What are their names, please?”
It was the first sound her mistress had made since the night before, when Sairu met her in the inner chamber of Hulan’s Throne. Sairu looked up, surprised, but could discern no sign of interest or curiosity. Lady Hariawan’s face was as beautiful and tranquil as ever behind its protective veils.
Still, a question was as good as a command. So Sairu, ignoring the Besur (who was expressing in sneers everything he dared not say aloud at the dogs’ arrival), presented her pets to her mistress. She bowed and picked up each one in turn, giving its name.
“This is Dumpling. He is pack-alpha. This is Rice Cake, his wife, and this is Sticky Bun, who is not to be trusted.”
She didn’t know quite what she expected in response. Princess Safiya had taught her early on that even no response is a response. No face is ever truly blank. Except . . .
Except Lady Hariawan’s, Anwar blight it!
“I thought there would be more,” Lady Hariawan said. “I told you to bring as many as you liked.”
“I like to bring no more than these,” Sairu replied. “A journey to the mountains is too great for little paws. They must be carried. We could not comfortably accommodate more.”
Lady Hariawan made no reply. Nor did she reach out to pet any of the fluffy heads offered her. But when, half an hour later, she was assisted onto the back of a tall, handsome mule, she motioned to the slave holding the dogs’ leashes.
“I will carry one,” she said.
There was no good in protesting, and Sairu did not bother to try. With reluctance, she took Sticky Bun from the slave and handed him into her mistress’s arms. The little dog scrambled and nearly got himself dropped before he finally settled into place. Sairu loaded Dumpling and Rice Cake into baskets hung for that purpose on either side of her own donkey’s saddle. But Lady Hariawan did not wish for a basket. She would carry the dog on her own.
So they began their journey, passing first through the long grounds of the Crown of the Moon itself. And before they had even reached the northernmost gate, Sticky Bun, catching a certain scent, let loose a fit of barking. Dumpling and Rice Cake raised an echoing chorus, but they were held in place by the basket lids and could only get their faces out. Sticky Bun, however, leapt from Lady Hariawan’s grasp. He landed with a jarring thud all too near the mule’s hooves, and Sairu, riding just behind, thought her heart would surely stop.
But Sticky Bun shook himself out and, shattering the morning stillness with his yips, waddled at high speed off into the temple gardens. Sairu slid off her donkey and gave pursuit, shouting, “Sticky Bun!” Which is not a good name for shouting if one hopes to maintain any sense of dignity.
She found the dog beneath a spreading cherry tree, leaping and scraping his frantic paws on the trunk. She scooped him up and tucked him under one arm, then peered into the blossom-thick branches above.
A flash of orange slipped out of her vision. Branches stirred and were still. Petals dropped like soft snow upon her face.
“Hush, Sticky Bun!” Sairu snapped, and clamped the yapping dog’s muzzle shut with one hand. He continued to squirm in her arms, but she held him tightly pressed to her side and stared up into the shadows of the cherry tree’s branches, willing her eyes to see what they could not.
It was no use. The cat was gone. But she knew what she had glimpsed. She knew to be on her guard.
Irked but still smiling, Sairu turned from the tree and hastened back to her waiting donkey and the traveling party. Lady Hariawan watched her approach and, when she was near, held out her arms.
“He’s a wicked one, my mistress,” Sairu warned. “He will leap again, I fear.”
Lady Hariawan said nothing but continued to reach for the dog. Sairu had no choice but to obey and hand Sticky Bun over.
Many pilgrims were to be seen in the crowded streets of Lunthea Maly, all wearing garb similar to Lady Hariawan’s, though perhaps not so finely made: a fur-trimmed cloak of black or brown, and the veil-trimmed hat worn by both men and women seeking the holy places of Anwar and Hulan. Most of these pilgrims were not permitted within the grounds of the Crown of the Moon, but numerous shrines surrounded the outer walls, and people would travel many leagues to knock their foreheads against smooth stones and offer prayers to silent figures carved in ivory and jade.
“One million,” Sairu whispered, her voice lost in the noise of the street traffic. “One million worshippers.” That was the number recorded of those who traveled to Lunthea Maly each year from across the Noorhitam Empire. Some even journeyed from the Outer Islands, many days beyond sight of the Continent, sailing through all weather just to make their reverence outside the walls of the magnificent temple.
It was a good plan, Sairu decided as she turned her head this way and that, counting the number of pilgrims’ hats she spied even now. There must be some twenty readily visible, and this was but one street. No one would notice their small company making its way through the twisting crush of city life. They were, to all apparent purposes, but one more pilgrimage returning to faraway lands after a few moments of sacred worship.
Thus Sairu smiled despite the cat, despite the Besur’s disbelief, despite her own heart ramming in her throat at the sights, sounds, and smells that beat upon her senses. Sights, sounds, and smells for which she had studied and prepared all her life, but which she had never encountered until now. Look! Was that a merchant of Ipoa Province peddling fine clothes? And there! Was that a blind widow begging alms from those hastening by? And here a thief picking a pocket, and there a lady of fly-by-night virtue wafting her fan, and here an onion merchant, and there a group of scuttling coal children, and there a pompous city chancellor, and there, and there . . .
So much life!
Sairu shook herself and focused her gaze upon the figure before her, riding straight and poised on the back of the tall mule. On her right rode a temple slave who had been introduced to Sairu as Tu Syed. On her left rode a much older slave named Tu Domchu. Tu Syed was the leader, Tu Domchu his second, and four more slaves—two riding before Lady Hariawan, two riding behind Sairu—accompanied them as well. Six slaves in total, and no more. Sairu would not hear of a greater company.
She narrowed her eyes, studying what she could of each slave in turn. Tu Syed was a middle-aged man of expensive tastes, considered a figure of some elite status among his brethren. She saw in a glance that he had been born enslaved, but into a good house with all the right advantages. Thus he carried himself with a snobbish air that Sairu did not quite like. By contrast, Tu Domchu slouched in his saddle, spitting between gaps in his teeth and scratching himself vigorously from time to time. He was much older than the other slaves, and Sairu wondered why he should be included in their company at all. He would not have been her first choice.
The other four were less interesting. Loyal, she decided, but not to Lady Hariawan. No, their loyalty was to the temple and to the Besur. Not to their mistress. Certainly not to Sairu. This meant they could be trusted only as far as they could be seen, and no farther.
They’d probably made journeys rather like this in the past. Escorting a temple girl hastened off to the country because of “ill-health.” And they would return the girl a year later, all better again, and some family in the country had a new baby to feed, a new pair of hands to r
aise for work on the farm. This was not a new business to the slaves of the Crown of the Moon.
Sairu shuddered, and her smile slipped for the first time that day. She did not like the slaves thinking such thoughts about her mistress. Whatever else went on within the Crown of the Moon, Lady Hariawan herself was sacred, was pure. One had only to look at her to see as much! She was above such baseness, and no one would dare touch her.
Yet she did bear a hand-shaped burn hidden behind the veils of her pilgrim’s hat. It was a great puzzle. But, as with all puzzles, there was a key. And Sairu would work it out in the end.
They journeyed through the city most of that day, their mounts’ hooves clopping on stone streets or kicking up dust and debris on unpaved surfaces. The crush of people was immense, and Sairu often found mounted strangers so close to her that she could feel the warmth of their bodies. The sun was setting by the time they reached the outer walls, but the city went on for some while beyond that, stretching out into the surrounding landscape. It was dusk by the time they came to a road that could truly be considered beyond the boundaries of Lunthea Maly. And even here small encampments, some grand, some humble, lined the road for miles. Merchant caravans, traveling nobles, country folk seeking a new life in the big city. And everywhere, absolutely everywhere, more pilgrims.
They all had stories. They all had missions. They were all so interesting, and Sairu’s heart burst with the wish to know them, to study them, to read their souls in their faces as the Golden Mother had taught her. But no. She was commissioned now. She had but one goal, the all-consuming goal of her life: She must care for her mistress.
Then they came to a place that Sairu had never felt any desire to see, and all other thoughts were driven from her mind.
She felt it long before she saw it—a low cloud of misery spread across the landscape, reaching out as though to catch in its irresistible grasp those who passed by. Of course she had known all along that, taking the northern road out of the city, they must necessarily ride near this place. But somehow she had managed to make herself forget until they were nearly upon it.
Lembu Rana. The Valley of Suffering.
The nearer they came, the more little figures they passed on the road. Little figures wrapped in heavy bandages and rags, supporting themselves on canes or crude crutches made of fallen tree limbs. Many were missing their feet or hands, or even whole arms. They moved with their heads bowed and, at the first sign of someone coming, would dive off the road and crouch trembling in a ditch.
The road wound on, and soon Sairu found that if she looked to her right she could see into a valley high, naturally hewn walls on all sides, lined with stones to hold back erosion. She stared down at the village huddled below, where the living dead gathered in their misery to eke out a sort of life for themselves. Until their bodies at last betrayed them and they succumbed to their sickness.
Succumbed to leprosy.
Sairu shivered. She felt the unease in Tu Syed, Tu Domchu, and the others as well. One of the young slaves even cursed several times, loud enough that Tu Syed scolded him, and he apologized to the ladies present. Sairu, however, did not blame him. She felt like cursing, herself.
Only Lady Hariawan did not react. Indeed, to all appearances she was entirely unaware of the horror near which they passed.
And soon they were passed Lembu Rana and into the farther roads, both the great city and the lepers’ village well at their backs. They proceeded at the plodding pace set by Lady Hariawan’s mule, their only light the glow of the Lady Moon and her children above. The donkeys began to pull at their bits and reach for scrub to chew, and even the mule put back its ears and began to drag its feet. Still Lady Hariawan did not call a halt.
“She’s not going to,” Sairu whispered suddenly. She twisted her neck, which crackled with soreness, for she had never ridden so long in one stretch before. But Lady Hariawan would keep on riding, riding, riding until her mule dropped dead . . . or she herself did.
She could not be trusted with any decision-making.
“We’ll make camp here,” Sairu declared in a loud voice, and the slaves, all of whom had fallen into an uneasy stupor, startled and looked around at her. Who was she, after all, to speak for the mistress? Nothing but a handmaiden!
But Sairu urged her donkey up beside Lady Hariawan’s mule. She found Sticky Bun, held gently, fast asleep in the lady’s arms. Lady Hariawan herself stared into the space between her mule’s ears and did not seem to hear Sairu when she spoke.
“My mistress, you are tired,” Sairu insisted, and reached out to touch her arm. “We must rest now.”
Sairu’s fingers scarcely brushed the heavy wool of the cloak, but Lady Hariawan startled and turned to her with wide, staring eyes, nearly dropping Sticky Bun, who growled and wriggled in protest. Lady Hariawan gazed unseeing at Sairu.
“Please, my mistress,” Sairu urged gently, saying again, “you are tired. Let us stop.”
Recognition slowly crept into Lady Hariawan’s eyes. She nodded slowly but said nothing even as Sairu issued commands to the slaves. Tu Domchu and a younger slave helped their mistress down from the mule and placed her upon some blankets out of the way; she might have been nothing more than a porcelain doll to be dressed, propped up, and ignored. Tu Syed ordered his brethren to build one fire for her and another for themselves a little ways off. Slaves though they were, they were not about to share their meal or fire with a woman, much less with a temple girl and her handmaiden.
Sairu unpacked a large purple eggplant from among their supplies and placed it near the fire to roast. Then she set about erecting a tent and making other small preparations while her dogs milled about her feet and whined piteously for their own supper. All this time, Lady Hariawan sat still as stone and scarcely seemed to see the flames of the campfire under her fixed gaze.
The cloak slipped from her shoulders. Though the evening was cold, she made no move to draw it back into place.
“What a baby you are!” Sairu exclaimed when she found her mistress sitting so exposed, nothing but her light gown to protect her from the night air. “A helpless baby! Did no one teach you even to keep yourself warm?” She wrapped the cloak back in place and, when Lady Hariawan made no move, picked up one of her mistress’s hands and made her clutch it at the throat.
“There,” Sairu said, and cast an irritable eye over her shoulder at Tu Syed and the others, none of whom had noticed Lady Hariawan’s state. A useless lot they were, they and their condescending noses!
Frowning, which felt uncomfortable on her characteristically cheerful face, Sairu pulled the roasted eggplant away from the fire and dug her knife into the top of it, loosening the skin. She worked efficiently, burning her fingers only slightly in the eggplant’s hot juices. And she watched her lady across the flames.
Sticky Bun lay at Lady Hariawan’s side, hoping for pettings and signs of affection that never came. Yet he remained beside her, though Dumpling and Rice Cake took up their usual positions on either side of Sairu, watching her work with intent eyes, in case the strips of eggplant skin might miraculously transform into beef jerk.
Suddenly Dumpling growled. Sairu glanced at him and saw his head come up, his pushed-in nose begin to twitch. Rice Cake echoed him a moment later, and then Sticky Bun, still pressed to Lady Hariawan’s side, followed suit.
It was that cat.
Sairu, her eggplant peeled, sliced it in half and, using the tip of her knife, began to flick the little seeds out of the fleshy center. All the while, her eyes scanned the darkness beyond the firelight. That cat was near, she was certain of it. Whatever and whoever it was, it had followed them from the city, stalking them out here into the night.
The dogs’ growling continued. They never forgot a scent. Then they silenced as swiftly as they’d begun, their heads settling down upon their outstretched paws, their plumy tails thumping the ground expectantly.
Sairu pulled a small pot of oil from her supplies and splashed a drop or two over the eggpla
nt pulp. Using a stone, she began grinding and twisting, making a mash that she seasoned with a little salt and other assorted spices. As she ground, her mind worked swiftly, turning over what she knew and what she had yet to find out. None of the dangers the Besur spoke of had given Sairu a moment of concern.
But this cat . . . this cat was a different story.
“Did you really kill the snake?”
Sairu startled, almost failing to recognize the sound of her mistress’s voice. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Did you really kill the snake?”
Lady Hariawan’s gaze fixed on Sairu’s hands as they mashed the eggplant. Sairu did not answer at first, trying to discern what the question might mean. Then she laughed, recalling the story she had told the Besur that morning. “Oh!” she said. “You mean that tale of the snake in my bed? Dear Anwar, no. I’m not so stupid as to get myself bitten, and I have no interest in killing without need.”
Lady Hariawan continued to watch the grinding stone, saying nothing. How did she feel, knowing Sairu had intentionally deceived the High Priest? Was she shocked? Angry? Appalled?
Did she feel anything?
The mash complete, Sairu scooped the eggplant into a wooden bowl, sprinkled it with more herbs, added two pieces of flatbread, and handed it to her mistress. Lady Hariawan accepted it but did not eat. She stared at it. As though she stared at the stone-crushed skull of a serpent.
Sticky Bun, sensing an opportunity, put his flat nose up to the bowl, determining whether or not he dared to help himself. Sairu spoke his name sharply, and he backed down, pink tongue lolling, bright gaze fixed. Sairu served her own meal and was well into it before Lady Hariawan spoke again.
“But you do kill?”
Sairu swallowed her mouthful slowly, considering her words. “I can,” she said at last. “I have.”
“Have you ever killed a man?”
Something in Sairu’s gut churned, and she suddenly hadn’t much appetite. She lowered her bowl, trusting Dumpling and Rice Cake not to take advantage, and studied her mistress across the fire. Lady Hariawan was still staring unseeing into her own bowl.