Then she was scrambling to her feet and rushing over. She gathered Lucia in a tight embrace; but the words of relief that were forming were never spoken. Lucia remained rigid, her arms by her sides. Kaiku backed away, searching her face quizzically.
'Lucia?'
The three soldiers were getting to their feet now, coming closer, warily, as if afraid of her. Asara had stood also, but she watched from a distance.
'It is done,' Lucia said, her gaze shifting minutely to meet Kaiku's. Her voice was flat and expressionless. 'We have been granted passage out of this forest. The beast will guard us.'
'Lucia?' Kaiku said again, the word a question. She tried to smile, but it faded into uncertainty. 'Lucia, what happened?'
'The spirits will aid us when the time comes,' Lucia said bitterly. 'That is what you wanted, is it not?'
Before Kaiku could protest, Lucia addressed the group, overriding her.
'We must return to Araka Jo. I do not wish to stay in this place an instant longer.'
Her tone precluded any further questions, and she did not give anyone the opportunity anyway. She walked away from Kaiku, leaving her bewildered and hurt, and headed into the trees. With nothing else they could do, the remnants of her retinue followed, one by one, as night fell across the Forest of Xu.
TWENTY
The great city of Axekami loured in its own miasma.
The exhalations of the Weavers' constructions had a strange weight to them, a persistency unlike that of smoke. The main bulk of it rose above the city in a roiling cap, slanted by the breeze across the plains so that it leaned eastward; but it also sank to mist the earth, and to spread outward along the ground. At its edges it was a diffuse haze, but still it appeared to permeate the air from horizon to horizon, a suspicion of something amiss that was too subtle for the eye to define. There were always clouds around Axekami now, which was unusual for winter when the skies were traditionally clear. Occasionally they unleashed a brown rain which smelt powerfully of rotten eggs.
The Imperial Quarter was a spectre of its former glory now. Its gardens went untended, its fountains murky and unclean. Its trees had shed their leaves and they decayed on the flagstones and cobbles. The townhouses that had once been occupied by the nobles and high families of the Empire had been gutted, their fineries long since stripped, occupied now by swarms of the destitute. The wide thoroughfares were all but empty of traffic, and shuffling vagrants meandered in the overgrown parks or the scummed water gardens.
Yet though the heart of the place was gone, small sections of its past remained. Shops and wholesalers stayed open, eking a living from what they could get into the city to sell, barely able to afford the guards that prevented them from being robbed. A thin trade from the rest of Axekami kept them alive. The alternative was to abandon their property and move, but few had the money or the opportunity now. They weathered the troubles as best they could, and hoped for better days.
One such shop was owned by a herbalist, who once had enjoyed a reputation as the best in the land. His father and grandfather before him had been appointed as suppliers to the physicians of the Imperial family, as had he in his turn. After the Weavers had taken Axekami, and the Imperial family was no more, he had refused to give up his ancestral premises. Even when the physician to the Lord Protector and Blood Koli offered him a place in the Imperial Keep, he had refused. Apart from his determination to keep his shop, he had little love for the Weavers, and he trusted them not at all.
So he remained here in the Imperial Quarter, and the physician came to him to buy what he needed, arriving in a black carriage gilded in gold, escorted by guards with rifles. The guards took station outside the shop while he went within.
The physician, whose name was Ukida, was thin and frail, with lank white hair combed across a balding pate and rheumy blue eyes. Despite the infirmity of his appearance, he moved like a man half his age and his hands and voice were steady and sure. His robe hung awkwardly on his spare frame as he walked up to the counter of the shop, passing rows of jars and cloth bags half-full of powdered roots. Most of the shelving was bare. The lanterns lit to aid the grim daylight only served to add to the depressing atmosphere, for they reminded Ukida that there should have been no need for them at such an hour.
He and the herbalist – a stout, rotund man with a whiskery moustache and a brisk, efficient manner – exchanged a few friendly words before a list was passed between them, and the herbalist disappeared into his preparation room to grind the necessary quantities. Ukida waited, tapping his fingers on the counter, looking idly about the shop.
'Master Ukida,' said a voice. 'You are looking well.'
The sound of his name startled him: he had thought the shop empty. He located the owner of the voice, appearing from a doorway that led into the back of the shop. She walked towards him, and his eyes widened in recognition.
'I have been waiting a long time for you,' she said. 'Three days.'
'Mistress Mishani!' he exclaimed in a hiss, too shocked even to bow. 'What are you doing here?'
'I have come to ask a favour of you,' she replied, her narrow face sallow in the bad light. She was not dressed in her usual finery. The robe she wore was battered and dirty, made for travelling, and her hair was worn in an unadorned ponytail and tucked into the back of her robe to disguise its length, the deception concealed by a voluminous hood. Tied tight against her small skull, it made her look faintly rodentine and not at all noble.
'You will be killed if they find you,' Ukida said, then added: 'I could be killed for just talking to you.' He glanced nervously over the counter, where the herbalist had been.
'He knows,' Mishani said. 'He remembers the days of the Empire, and he is loyal to them. I guessed you would come here eventually, so I asked him to let me wait for you.' She gave him a wry smile. 'This was always the only place you would come to for supplies. You were most insistent, even with my father, that you would settle for nothing but the best.'
'Your memory is good, Mistress, but I fear your judgement is not. You are in great danger in Axekami. Did you walk through these streets alone? Such madness!'
'I know the risks, Ukida. Better than you do,' Mishani replied. 'I have a letter for you to deliver to my mother.'
Ukida shook his head in alarm. 'Mistress Mishani, you would risk my life!'
'There is no risk. You may read it, if you wish.' She drew the letter from the sash of her robe and held it out to him. It had no seal.
He looked at it uncertainly. Mishani could tell he was deciding where his loyalties lay in this situation. On the one hand, he was blood-bound to Mishani's family, and that meant her as well; she was still officially part of Blood Koli. On the other, all the retainers knew that Mishani was no longer welcome within that family, and her father would most likely have her executed if he caught her. At the very least, she would be imprisoned and interrogated. Her involvement in the kidnapping of Lucia was generally known now, though never officially ratified, as was her hand in the revolt at Zila several years later. The Weavers would show her no mercy if they found her, nor anyone who had abetted her.
'Take it,' she urged him. She was recalling how he had nursed her through childhood illnesses, tended to her scratches and grazes. He would not betray her; of that she was sure. The question was whether he would help her.
Reluctantly, he took the letter and unfolded it. There was no indication of the recipient or the sender, only a dozen vertical rows of High Saramyrrhic pictograms.
'It is a poem,' he said. And not a very good one, he added mentally.
'That it is,' said Mishani. 'Please, give that to my mother. You need not even say it was from me. Nobody will know.'