Fury and frustration were churning her soul fearfully on this bright, windy autumn day. She hadn’t slept. Her eyes were rough and raw. She felt chills and shakes. And yet she couldn’t slow down. Restlessly she prowled the stone-floored chamber at the rear of the Basilica that she had turned into the command center for the search for Nialli Apuilana, and for the investigations of the two murders as well.
Behind her, tacked helter-skelter to a wall-board, were documents by the dozens — statements of citizens who claimed to have seen Nialli Apuilana on the fateful afternoon, wild third-hand tales of supposed murder plots overheard in taverns, vague and tentative reports from the city guards on their investigations thus far. None of it was worth a thing. She knew no more than she had on the first afternoon, which was nothing at all.
“You have to try to be calm,” Boldirinthe said.
“Calm! Yes.” Taniane laughed bitterly. “Yes, of course. Above all else I must try to be calm. Two killings, and my daughter nowhere to be found, hiding in some cellar, maybe, or more likely dead, and you want me to be calm!”
They were all staring at her. The room was full of important people just then. Hresh was there, suddenly haggard and old, and Chomrik Hamadel, the keeper of the Beng talismans, and Husathirn Mueri, and the Beng justiciar Puit Kjai, and the acting captain of the guards.
“Why would you think she’s dead?” Puit Kjai asked.
“What if it’s a general conspiracy? Murder the hjjk ambassador, murder the captain of the guards, murder the chieftain’s daughter, perhaps the chieftain herself, next—”
They were staring and staring. She saw by their expressions that they had begun to think she had cracked under the strain. They might be right about that.
Softly Boldirinthe said, “Nialli Apuilana hasn’t been murdered, Taniane. She’s alive and she’ll be found. I’ve asked the Five Heavenly Ones, and they tell me that she is safe, that she is well, that she is—”
“The Five!” Taniane said. Almost a shriek, it was. “You’ve asked the Five! We should ask Nakhaba too, I suppose. Ask all the gods we know, and some that we don’t. And the Queen of the hjjks — perhaps we ought to consult Her also—”
“Perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad idea,” said Hresh.
Taniane glanced at him in astonishment. “This isn’t any time for being facetious.”
“You were being facetious. I’m serious.”
“What are you talking about, Hresh?”
Diffidently he said, “It’s something that’s best discussed between you and me only, I think. Concerning the hjjks. And Nialli.”
Her hand moved in impatient circles. “If it involves the security of the city, it ought to be brought out into the open right here and now. Unless you feel Puit Kjai is unworthy of hearing it, or Husathirn Mueri, or Boldirinthe—”
He looked at her strangely. “It involves our daughter, and where I think she has gone, and why.”
“Then it’s a security matter. Out with it, Hresh!”
“Since you insist.” Hresh sighed. But he was silent until she prodded him with a quick imperious gesture. “They were going to run off to the Nest,” he said then, bringing the words out with difficulty. “Nialli and Kundalimon. To the Nest of Nests, the great one where the Queen lives, in the far north. You know they were lovers, and twining-partners also. And they wanted no part of life in this city, neither of them. The Nest drew them like a magnet. They came to me and babbled about Nest-bond, about Queen-love, dreams and magic, how the sweet air of the Nest fills one’s soul and transforms you forever—”
His words were blades. Taniane pressed her hand to her heart. He was right that this should never have been poured out in front of all these others. It was family business, scandalous, mortifying. But too late now.
“They told you this?” Taniane said leadenly.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The day before the games. They came to me to ask my blessing.”
Taniane said, incredulous, “You knew they were going to leave, and you kept it to yourself?”
His expression darkened. In a thin voice he said, “As I told you before, we’d have done better discussing this in private. But you insisted, remember. I kept what Nialli had told me to myself, Taniane, because I knew you’d have tried to stop her from going.”
“Which you had no objection to?”
“What was I to do? Order them thrown into prison? Even that wouldn’t have accomplished anything. You know the girl. Nothing stops her. She’s like a force of nature. She told me her plans out of love, so that I’d understand it when she disappeared. She knew I wouldn’t take any steps to prevent her.”
Taniane shook her head in disbelief. At Hresh’s stupidity, at Nialli Apuilana’s willfulness. And at her own idiocy in pushing her into Kundalimon’s arms. No, not idiocy. It had been for the good of the city. There were things she had needed to learn, and only Nialli Apuilana could have discovered them for her. She would do it all again.
“So you think that’s where she’s gone? To the Nest?”
“To the Nest, yes. The Nest of Nests.”
“Even though Kundalimon is dead?”
“ BecauseKundalimon is dead,” Hresh said. “She sees the Nest as a place of love and wisdom. When she heard he was dead, she went running to the hjjks to take refuge.”
The room was terribly silent.
Taniane trembled with rage and disbelief. “But it would take months, or years, even, to get to them. Who knows how far it is to the great Nest? How could Nialli even think of trying to do it alone?” For a moment she felt herself teetering on the brink. It was too much. Hresh’s perfidy, Nialli Apuilana’s madness. And now a room full of wide-eyed faces and gaping mouths, everyone too amazed to speak. Pitying her. Perhaps feeling contempt for her, even. Pretends to rule the city, can’t even control her own daughter. No. No. She wasn’t going to let this overwhelm her. Fiercely she said, “You’re talking foolishness, Hresh. The girl may have been crazed with love, and maybe even some sort of hjjk insanity that the boy poured into her. But she wouldn’t ever have been crazy enough to go off on a trip like that by herself. Not Nialli. No, Hresh. I still think she’s in the city somewhere. Hiding, like a wounded animal. Until she gets over her grief.”
“Dawinno grant that you’re right,” Hresh said.
“You don’t think I am?”
“I saw her with Kundalimon the day before she vanished. I talked with her. I know how she felt about him. And about the hjjks.”
Angrily Taniane said, “Then you look for her your way, and I’ll look for her mine. You’re the one with the powers. If you think she’s heading for the hjjks, send your wonderful mind after her, and track her down, and talk her into coming home, if you can. Meanwhile I’ll keep my guardsmen out searching for her.” She looked toward Husathirn Mueri, who was in charge of the murder investigations, and to Chevkija Aim, the young Beng who was the acting captain of the guards. “I want reports every four hours, day and night. Understood? The girl’s someplace nearby. She has to be. Find her. This has gone on long enough.”
Husathirn Mueri, slick and smooth as ever, smiled as though she had asked for nothing more than an extra copy of some routine report. In his most resonant way he declared, “Lady, I’m confident we’ll have her back by nightfall. Or by tomorrow at the latest. I feel sure of it. By all the gods, I’m sure of it!”
And moved his head in a slow half-circle, looking around the room at each of the others in turn, as if defying them to contradict him. With a flourish he requested permission to withdraw and get about his task.
Taniane nodded. It was time to get away from this room herself. Her shoulders quivered. She realized suddenly that she was at the end of her endurance, on the verge of tumbling down in a sobbing heap. That was new, this weakness. She battled to control herself. She couldn’t let herself break down in front of these people, whose conflicting ambitions she had held in check so long by strength, by guile, and, when necessary, by sheer force of will. Force of will was what she needed now. But she felt so weak — so drained of the power that had always been hers—