“What do you think you are doing?”
Ythna turned to see one of the Obfuscators watching her. Trex. He’d arrived with the others, to take charge of the scene, and keep the retainers in order. He was a tall, solidly built man with a sallow face and black hair and eyes. And he was holding a fully charged valence gun, aimed at her. She could smell the burnt-shoe odor from a few feet away, and if he fired she would be a pile of dust in seconds. He had the black chestpiece and square helmet that indicated he was one of the Emperor’s personal Obfuscators, empowered to create order in just about any way he deemed necessary.
Ythna backed against the pillar, stuttering and trying to think of what to say. “There was a woman, a stranger. Not one of our party. She came out of this pillar right after the Beldame was killed.” She described the woman and her clothing as best she could, and the Obfuscator Trex seemed to be listening carefully. At last, he nodded and indicated for her to rejoin the others.
“Tell nobody else what you saw,” added Trex. Then he stalked away, his back and legs as stiff as one of the supply robots carrying fuel and food up the mountainside to the Golden Fortress.
The retainers all started to freeze as the sun got lower on the horizon, since they were wearing light koton ceremonial gowns designed for comfort in the noon sun. The patch of dried blood had gone crisp, but the smell of newly slaughtered cattle still hung in the air. Nobody had yet decided what to do with these surplus retainers. Yuli and Maryn still debated running away.
Someone gave the retainers hot barley wine, to warm them up, which just reminded Ythna of the Beldame Thakrra all over again, and she found herself crying harder than ever as she drank from the communal jug. Some time later, she needed to relieve herself, and couldn’t bear to soil the same ground where the Beldame had bled to death. She begged an Obfuscator until he gave her permission to go around the Tomb to the front entrance, where some simple latrines had been set up. Ythna thanked him profusely.
The latrines were lined up like sentry boxes, perpendicular to the front pillar of the Tomb. Beyond them, there was the edge of a dense forest of oaks, birches, and pines, stretching all the way to the distant white mountains. A chill wind seemed to come from the woods as Ythna slipped inside one of the latrines, hiking up her shift. When she came out again, the red-haired woman was there.
The woman gestured for Ythna to be silent. “I’ve been observing you,” she whispered, with an accent that Ythna couldn’t place. “You’re cleverer than the rest. And you’re actually grief-stricken for the poor dead Beldame. All your friends are just pretending. I want to help you.”
“You killed her,” Ythna said. “You killed the Beldame. I saw you step out of the tomb right after she fell.”
“No, I swear I had nothing to do with her death,” the woman said sadly. “Except that it created a door for me to step through. That’s how I travel. My name is Jemima Brookwater, and I’m from the future.”
Ythna studied the strange red-haired woman for a moment. Her black boots were shiny but scuffed, her puffy pants had a grass stain on one knee, and her fine velvet coat had a rip in the side, which had been hastily sewn and patched. Whatever this woman was—crackwit, breakbond, or something else—she was not an assassin. But maybe Ythna should tell Trex in any case.
“It was good to meet you, Jemima,” Ythna said. “I should go and rejoin the others. Be safe.” She turned to go back around the tomb toward the other retainers, whom she could hear chanting the grief spiral with dry, exhausted throats.
“Let me help you,” Jemima said again.
Ythna turned back. “Why would you want to help me?”
“I told you, I travel by using the openings created when someone important dies unexpectedly. And I feel bad about that. So I made a vow: every time I travel, I try to help one person, one deserving person.”
“And how would you help me?” Something about this woman’s way of speaking reminded Ythna of the Beldame, except that Jemima was more animated and lacked the Beldame’s dignity.
“I don’t know. You tell me. It’s not really helping if I decide for myself what sort of help you need, is it?”
Ythna didn’t say anything for a moment, so Jemima added:, “Tell me. Your mistress, Thakrra, is dead. What do you want to do now?”
Nobody had ever asked Ythna what she wanted, in her entire life. But more startling than that was to hear Jemima say Thakrra was dead, by name, because it hit her all over again: the feeling of hopelessness. Like she had swallowed something enormous, that she could never digest even if she lived forever. She heard the droning chant from the plains on the other side of the tomb, and all of a sudden the voices sounded genuinely miserable instead of forced and dried out.
“There is nothing you can do for me,” Ythna said, and turned to leave in the shadow of the great criss-crossing limbs of the Tomb.
The woman chased after her, speaking quickly. “That’s just not true,” she said. “I really don’t want to tell you what you should do, but I can help with anything you choose. For example, I can get you out of here. That forest is full of landmines, but I know a secret underground passage, which archaeologists discovered hundreds of years from now. And I could forge whatever documents you might need. Your Empire outlawed proper computers. They keep obsessive records on paper, but with a few major flaws. You can be anyone.”
Ythna turned back one last time, tears all over her face. “I cannot be anyone,” she said. “I can only be what I am: one small piece of the Beldame. Who do you belong to? Are you completely alone? You seem like someone who just comes and goes, like a ghost. And you want me to become a ghost as well. I can’t. Leave me alone.”
“Listen.” Jemima grabbed Ythna’s arm. They were almost back within view of the massed group of retainers, Obfuscators, and Officiators. “This is not going to go well for you. I’ve read the history books, I know what happened to a retainer whose master or mistress died suddenly, without making arrangements first. If you’re lucky, you get reeducated and sent to a new household, where you’ll be the lowest status and they’ll treat you like dirt. If you’re unlucky…”
Ythna tried to explain, with eyes full of tears and a voice suddenly hoarse from crying and chanting, that she didn’t care what happened to her. “I can’t just dishonor the Beldame by running away. That would be worse than enduring any abuse. If you know so much, then you have to understand that.”
At last, Jemima let go of Ythna’s arm, and she turned to go back to the others before she was missed.
“At least I tried,” Jemima said. “I do admire your conviction.”
“There she is,” a voice said from behind them. “I told you. I told you she was conspiring. All along, conspiring. And scheming.” Maryn stood at the edge of the tomb, pointing at Ythna and Jemima. Beside her, Obfuscator Trex advanced, raising the brass rod of his valence gun. Maryn was a foot shorter than Trex and wore simple robes like Ythna’s next to Trex’s bulky chrome-and-leather uniform. But Maryn’s excitement and triumph made her seem twice as big as the strong, fussy man.
Jemima grabbed Ythna and pushed her behind herself, so that Jemima could take the brunt of Trex’s first shot and Ythna would have an extra few seconds to live.
“The penalty for conspiring to assassinate a Beldame is death,” Trex said, chewing each syllable like a nugget of fat. “I am mightily empowered to carry out the sentence at once.”