The seneschal nodded reluctantly. “Yes,” he said aloud. “It’s time.” He stared ruefully one last moment into Rhapsody’s rocky grave of smoldering water, trying to blot from his mind the way she had met his eye before she jumped. The message had been unmistakable.
Death, even a violent and painful one, was preferable to being with him.
“Whore,” he whispered into the wind coming up from the rocks below.
“Miserable, rutting whore.”
33
The long ride home from Sorbold had given Achmed an interesting window into the woman he had hired.
At first, her somewhat slight stature and angled face had reminded him of strongly of Rhapsody, as well as her unwillingness to be disturbed in her work or manhandled, even by her own family members. But the more he observed Theophila, the more intrigued he was by the differences between them.
Rhapsody had always been as transparent to him as clear glass. Her motives and intentions were obvious, and while she had subtleties and nuances to her character, for the most part she was as easy to read as the mile-high letters carved by river canyons into the cliff faces of the mountain passes in the High Reaches back in the old world.
Theophila, on the other hand, was more opaque than the stained glass she and her fellow Panjeri crafted.
For the vast part of the journey she had said nothing, preferring to ride in silence over the rocky steppes that edged the Manteid mountains from Sorbold northeast to Ylorc. She was even quieter once they entered the mountain passes, glancing above her every few minutes like a prey animal nervously watching for predators above.
While he found her silence to be preferable on balance to Rhapsody’s prattle, there was something different about the vibration that emanated from her. While the natural music that surrounded Rhapsody was soothing to the sensitive network of nerves and veins that scored the surface of his skin, the Panjeri woman had more of a crackle to her, a sort of static that hung in the air that she passed through. It was fascinating, though it kept his natural defenses on a high state of alert.
On rare occasion he had even tried to engage her in conversation, or what to Achmed passed for conversation, terse and pointed questions about her training, her experience, her requirements. Theophila responded in short, clipped answers, preferring to keep her concentration focused on the unfamiliar terrain through which they were traveling.
When they camped at night, neither of them got much sleep. The level of understandable distrust had not subsided in the few days since they had met, and so each traveler tended to sleep upright, drawn, ostensibly to be ready to respond to any threat coming upon them from roving animals or brigands, but there was little doubt in either of their minds that the other was on the list of things of which to be wary.
On the few occasions that Theophila did speak, she had gone into great length about the type of tools and supplies she would need, despite not having seen the project site. She had brought a small bag with her, and in it he presumed there were a few hand tools: a saw, perhaps, tile nippers, and the badly balanced groziers and files he had seen her using on the glass windows of Sorbold. But the Panjeri owned the more significant tools and all of the supplies, she had said, and so he would need to be prepared to outfit her completely.
She’s a tool-slut, he thought in amusement, watching as she scrawled the list. Like Rhapsody and her weakness for clothes. Every woman he had known, no matter how formidable, had a secret obsession for something.
She also knew how to handle a horse. When she thought he wasn’t looking, Achmed had heard her speaking to the animal he had purchased in Yarim, checking its hooves, gentling it with words in another tongue. Her hands were small but strong, and she employed them rather than her feet to direct her mount. It was a soft side that she gave him no view into when she knew he was paying attention.
Six days after they left the Rymshin Pass, the towering peaks of Griwen and Xaith came into view. Achmed watched Theophila from behind his veils, noting how quickly her dark eyes took in the sight of the multicolored mountains, rising, fanglike, in a multiplicity of colors and hues, blends of black and purple, green and blue above rolling mist that made it appear as if they were in the clouds above. Those two peaks had been hollowed out in the Cymrian era, and now had been restored and expanded into outposts that never slept, housing thousands of soldiers in watchtowers that could see for fifteen leagues across the Krevensfield Plain.
“Ylorc,” he said simply. Theophila nodded silently.
He brought her in through the main entrance to the Cauldron, giant arched gates hewn from the very stone fabric of the mountain, past giant ramparts and bulwarks fashioned on a scale as if for holding back gods. Achmed chuckled to himself at the look of undisguised wonder on her face, remembering how he, Grunthor, and Rhapsody had first entered Ylorc through a storm sewer drain, itself a massive architectural marvel, though obviously less grandiose. As ever, he had no need to examine his motives.
He had wanted to impress her, to overwhelm her. Even to frighten her a little.
Great brass bells rang at their approach, the martial sound echoing off the peaks of the Teeth and through the earthen walls, rattling the massive tapestries in the inner hallway. Two hundred Bolg soldiers, glowering in their dark leather armor, their greaves and vambraces forged of blue-black rysin-steel, lined the colossal corridor that led past gigantic statues left over from the Cymrian era, recently restored to glory, or at least cleanliness, by the Bolg artisans.
Theophila followed the Bolg king as he turned down the deep tunnel that led to the Great Hall, lined on both sides with uncounted pedestals, most of them mismatched, on which various items sat, gathering dust.
“What’s all this?” she asked, her voice reverberating in the cavernous hallway.
“Gifts of state,” Achmed replied, walking past necklaces and pitchers, seals and other court treasures, all casually displayed. “Trinkets and frippery that various leaders of other nations sent as gifts when I took control of the Bolg-lands. Bribes. Appeasement. Dust collectors.”
The Panjeri woman’s dark eyes glittered in the shadows from the torches that lined the halls.
“Some of them look priceless.”
“No doubt they are.”
“Well, then why are they so carelessly displayed?”
Achmed snorted. “Because I don’t care about them. I would have sold the lot of them in the fish market, but my—minister of protocol insisted that they needed to be kept in case any of the fools came calling.”
Theophila smiled slightly. “Why don’t the pedestals match, at least?”
Achmed shrugged. “You find a pedestal in an old closet somewhere, you haul it out, stick a bowl on it, and put it in the corridor. It becomes a diplomatic statement. They don’t have to match.”
“Ah. And yet you are willing to spend two hundred thousand gold suns on stained glass. You have an interesting sense of aesthetics.” Theophila lapsed into silence and followed him up the corridor to the Great Hall.
Shaene was sifting a large pile of wood ash into a barrel amid the scattered shards of the many frit attempts that had failed when Achmed and the new stained-glass master entered the tower of Gurgus.
The Canderian artisan gaped for a moment, then closed his mouth quickly and made his way across the marble floor, his boot heels sounding in the high-domed chamber. He wiped his hands on his leather apron as he approached.
“Welcome home, Your Majesty,” he said with exaggerated politeness to Achmed. “I trust you had a good trip.” He smiled brightly at the woman, who met his gaze without registering a facial expression.
“Where is Rhur?” Achmed demanded brusquely.