It was the last thing she needed right now, this frantic outburst. She was still shaken by the shock of what she had seen in Nialli Apuilana’s soul. What she needed was to return to her cloister and rest. A quiet dinner with dear old Staip, a few bowls of wine, and bed — yes—
Let come what may, she thought. New cults, new gods, anything. I’ve worked hard today. I’m tired. I long for my couch.
Coolly she said, “Perhaps you’re making a great deal out of very little. The children liked Kundalimon, yes. He amused them. He told them interesting stories. Now they mourn him. They bring offerings to his spirit. I saw them at it as I came here today. A harmless gesture, a memorial, nothing more. And in a few days it’ll all blow over. He’ll become part of history, something for Hresh to enter in his chronicles, and that’ll be the end of it.”
“And if you’re wrong? If there’s a revolution here instead? What then, Boldirinthe?” He waved his hands excitedly.
But she had had enough.
She said, “Speak to Taniane if these things bother you, Husathirn Mueri. I’m fat and old, very fat, very old, and whatever changes will come, if they do, will probably come when I’m no longer here to see them. Or if I still am, well, I’ve seen more changes than you can imagine in my lifetime already. I can stand to see some more. Let me go, now. May Mueri give you peace, eh? Or Nakhaba, if you prefer. All gods are one, to me.”
“What? But you are sworn to the Five!”
“The Five are my gods. But all gods are godly.” She made a sign of Mueri at him, and moved slowly onward past him to the door, and down the steps to the waiting wagon.
The boy’s name was Tikharein Tourb. He was nine. He wore the black-and-yellow Nest-guardian talisman on his breast.
The girl was Chhia Kreun. She had the wrist-amulet.
They stood before a congregation of eleven children and three adults. Aromatic boughs were piled high in the little rough-walled basement room, so that the pungent odor of sippariu sap mingled with the sweetness of dilifar needles to make the air almost intoxicatingly strong.
“Hold hands,” said Tikharein Tourb. “Everyone, touch together! Close your eyes.”
Chhia Kreun, standing next to the boughs, was virtually in a trance. She began to chant, unknown words, thick and harsh. Perhaps they were hjjk words. Who could say? They were sounds that Kundalimon had taught them. What they might mean, no one knew. But they had a holy sound.
“Everyone,” Tikharein Tourb cried. “Come on! Everyone, say the words! Say them! Say them! It is the prayer to the Queen!”
The negotiations, such as they were, were stalled. Since the news had come of those murders in Dawinno, Thu-Kimnibol had fallen into some sort of black pit of brooding. Salaman watched him with surprise and growing uneasiness. All day long he paced the halls of the palace like some huge beast, and at the royal feasts each night he said practically nothing.
What was bothering him, so he said, was the lateness of the autumn caravan from the City of Dawinno. It was nine days late arriving at Yissou. “Where is it?” Thu-Kimnibol kept asking. “Why isn’t it here?” He seemed obsessed by its failure to arrive. But there had to be more to it than that. For a caravan to be a few days late wasn’t sufficient cause for so much fretting.
“There must be bad weather somewhere down south,” Salaman said, trying to soothe him. Thu-Kimnibol was too explosive, too unpredictable, when he was this troubled. “Heavy storms along the way, flooding on the highway, some such thing.”
“Storms? We’ve had nothing but one golden day after another.”
“But perhaps to the south—”
“No. The caravan’s late because there’s trouble in Dawinno. Once killing begins, where does it stop? There’s some upheaval going on there.”
So that’s what’s worrying him, Salaman thought. He still thinks he should have gone home the moment he got word of the murders. He feels guilty because he’s up here doing nothing while Dawinno may be in an uproar. If Taniane had wanted him to come home, though, Taniane would have asked him to come home. The fact that she didn’t must mean there’s no problem there.
“My prayers go with you, cousin,” Salaman said unctuously. “Yissou grant that all is well in your city.”
But the days went by, five more, six, seven, and still no caravan. Now Salaman too was puzzled. The caravans were always punctual. In winter and spring Yissou sent caravans south, and in summer and autumn they came northward from Dawinno. They were important to the economic life of both cities. Now Salaman found himself plagued with fretful merchants and manufacturers whose warehouses were piled high with goods ready to offer. Who would they sell them to, they asked him, if the caravan didn’t come? And the marketplace vendors who dealt in goods from Dawinno had the opposite problem. They needed to restock; but where was the caravan? “Soon,” Salaman told them all. “It’s on its way.” Yissou! Where was it? He was getting as edgy as Thu-Kimnibol.
Was something really wrong down south? He did, of course, have a few spies in Dawinno. But he hadn’t heard from them in weeks. The distance between the two cities was so great, the time of travel so long. We need some better way of getting news from abroad, the king told himself. Something faster, something that doesn’t involve asking couriers to travel hundreds of leagues. Something using second sight, maybe. He made a note to give the matter some thought.
Thu-Kimnibol continued to pace and scowl. Salaman found himself beginning to do it too.
Gods! Where was that caravan?
Husathirn Mueri said, “I trust your daughter’s recovery is proceeding well, lady.”
“As well as can be hoped for,” said Taniane, in a dull, toneless way.
He was astounded to see how tired she looked. Her shoulders were slumped, her hands lay limply in her lap, her fur was faded and without sheen. Once she had seemed to him more like Nialli Apuilana’s older sister than her mother, but no longer.
Maybe the state of Nialli Apuilana’s health had been the wrong topic to open with. He went on quickly to something else.
“As you requested, lady, I have the latest report on the search for Curabayn Bangkea’s murderer. The report is that no progress has been made.”
Taniane stared at him balefully. “There won’t ever be any progress there, will there, Husathirn Mueri?”
“I think not, lady. It was such a casual crime, it seems—”
“Casual? Murder?”
Suddenly there was cold fire in her eyes.
He said, “I meant only that it must have been a sudden brawl, something that came up out of nowhere, perhaps even without reason. Of course, we’ll continue the investigation in every way possible, but—”
“Forget the investigation. It isn’t leading anywhere.”
Her brusqueness was startling. “Just as you wish, lady.”
“What I want you to get your guardsmen thinking about is this new religion we have. This cult. It seems to be traveling through the city like a pestilence.”
“Chevkija Aim is leading a vigorous program of suppression, lady. In the past week alone we’ve uncovered three chapels, and we have—”
“No. Suppression isn’t going to work.”
“Lady?”
“I’m hearing disturbing news. Men like Kartafirain, Si-Belimnion, Maliton Diveri — property-holders, men who get around and know what’s going on. They say that as fast as we close down one chapel, two more open. Everyone out there is talking about Kundalimon. A prophet, they call him. A holy prophet. Queen-love’s spreading among the workers faster than a new drink. It’s becoming obvious very quickly that the policy of suppression’s going to cause more trouble than it cures. I want you to tell Chevkija Aim to call off his campaign.”