Laldasa (28 page)

“Are you ascribing Ana sainthood now—or is that just your way of putting me in my place?”

Ravi's face suffused with color. “I would overstep my boundaries-“

“You have no boundaries. We have no boundaries. Speak plainly, Ravi.”

“Anala may not be a saint, but I respect her. I wonder if you do.”

Jaya felt his face tingle with ... embarrassment, he realized. “Yes. I do respect her. But ... it's more complicated than that.”

“Is it? Or is it as simple as heat and hardness and a certain pain?”

My face will be singed black, thought Jaya. “No. It is not that simple.”

“When one is hungry, one eats.”

“It is not that simple.”

Ravi waited patiently to hear how simple it was not.

Jaya sighed. “She draws me. Like ... like rain to earth. Ravi, you're making me explain things I don't have words for.”

Ravi's eyes glinted. “Poor mahesa. Life is discovery.”

“Now you're beginning to sound like her.”

“Thank you. Jaya Rai, you owe me no explanations.”

Jaya nodded. “But I do owe Ana.”

“That depends on what has passed between you. I was thinking you owe them to yourself.”

“Ah. ‘Know what you feel before you act on it.'”

“Always good advice.”

“But if I don't know what I feel-“

“Then is it wise to act?”

“I feel desire.”

“She is Rohin, Jaya Rai.”

Jaya exhaled explosively. “What does that mean? I've read everything I can find about the Rohin. It's all contradictory, mysterious.”

“Mysterious? What's mysterious about it? It's a way of life, a path of purity, an attitude of devotion, a bhakti.”

“Bhakti.” Jaya shook his head. “What's that? I don't understand that either.”

Ravi's eyebrows arched quizzically. “How can you not understand what you live, Jaya Rai? Bhakti is what you have for your Jivinta. That, I know you understand. Now, about Duran Prakash.”

Jaya pulled his mind back from the rim of some half-glimpsed metaphysical world. “Is he still here?”

“No. He left. Father says he was one of the last to have his mitas brought around. Will you confront him?”

“No, but I want you and Ari to hire some extra security people. No one must be allowed to enter this House without being seen. And I want more surveillance points added to the system.”

Ravi nodded. “Then there is nothing we can do about Prakashsama's behavior tonight?”
 

“It appears not.”

“That is a shame,” Ravi said.

Yes, it was a shame, Jaya thought, as he wearily entered his suite. A shame on a noble House. If he was punctilious about tradition he would send the Rani packing back to her clan capitol in disgrace ... but that would mean publicly disgracing his father's memory.

He stood at the connecting door now. It was still ajar. His hand rested on the latch. He pushed gently, swinging the door wide on silent hinges. A soft pinkish light still burned near Ana's bed, shedding its glow over the occupant. She was asleep. She looked exhausted ... and troubled. Her face lacked the softness of true rest and a frown lay across her forehead like a dark compress.

Jaya let himself relive those moments before Ravi's interruption; felt Ana's lips respond to his kiss, her fingers tangling his hair, her body—warm, smooth, muscular, seductive—evoking every form of hunger he knew. He recalled the verse of Erai prayer: All desires and all perfumes and all tastes. She was that. She was beautiful. She was terrifying.

And terrified.

He remembered that, now, having somehow burned through the veil of preferred memory. He recalled her face in that second before Ravi called. That was fear. Not desire, fear.

He turned back into his own bed chamber, leaving the door open. His head hurt with fatigue. Puzzle pieces spun there, Desire, sakti, disgrace, honor, love, fear, bhakti—pieces.

Bhakti is what you have for your Jivinta.

He slept with that thought, finding it an easier bedmate than the memory of Ana's terror.

“Your report?”

“Not as good as I'd hoped.”

“That's disappointing.”

“No less so to me. The Rani Melantha has charms beyond her son's political position.”

Duran Prakash seated himself in a pillowed cup chair and gazed out over Kasi. He barely noticed the magnificent view afforded by the height of the penthouse.

“She divested herself of any conflicting interests,” he reported.

“At her son's request?”

Prakash shrugged and sipped his drink. “I have no idea. I only know that the couture called in extreme heat asking why his benefactress had withdrawn her funds.”

“I see. And you've gotten her no closer to marriage?”

“I was admitted to her private chamber after the Mesha celebration.”

“Ah! And?”

“And we performed ... certain Bogar rites. Rites she had not permitted me before. But that was all. She seems determined to give me only a drop more of herself at a time. I did glean some more about her son's relationship with this Avasan girl, though.”

“Yes?”

“Her bed chamber connects with our Lord's, and her wardrobe is full of the sort of whispwear a man likes to see on his bedmate. I'm certain there's a sexual liaison there and, with the position she enjoyed at table—well, I would say our Nathu Rai has a vested interest in the welfare of her family on Avasa. They are not in the mining business-“

“Irrelevant. The Avasan economy is driven by mining. Everything else is just part of the infrastructure.”

 
 
“We may be able to call him on this, then, if the Vrinda Varma shares that interpretation of the situation.”

There was a protesting creak of leather as Nigudha Bhrasta rose from his chair. He moved to the great window that formed one wall of the opulent office atop the North Tower of the KasiNawahr Consortium's main offices. Imbedded pieces of crystal shot a rainbow of light-darts back into the darkened room.

“It seems, then, that there may be several ways to get to the young mahesa through this woman. Which is best? Is she in a politically susceptible position?”

Prakash chuckled. “That I seriously doubt, although I suspect she is not just Avasan, but possibly Genda Sita, as well.”

“Her skin is surely not that light.”

“I've had the opportunity to inspect her fairly closely. Her palms are pale as cream, which leads me to think what color she has is merely sun tan. I'm having the Sadira family checked out, of course. Her grandmother was from Avasa and her grandfather from Darupur. I'm having the Avasan side of her family traced.”

“I'm not sure the color of her skin is going to serve us much. Remember, a Sarojin can get away with things other men cannot. If she is Genda Sita, that means that one of them has already got away with marrying a snow-jinn. Besides which, there are elements within the Vrinda Varma that would consider raising a racial issue a petty tactic. Her origins alone may provide the tool we need. At the next session, the issue shall be raised.”

“That will slow things down a bit,” agreed Prakash, “but it will hardly get us the Sarojin vote. Nor will eliminating him from the vote serve our purposes.”

“No, we must influence the young Taj. It appears we must resort to more obvious persuasion.”

Prakash grimaced. “So it would seem. Sarojin is too arrogant to be bought and too apathetic to be pressured politically.”

“No, Duran, you're wrong. Apathy is not a Sarojin trait and never has been. If it were, your Rani would not recently have sold her KNC interests. Our Nathu Rai is simply too stubborn to be pressured politically. He has that much of his father in him.”

Bhrasta seated himself in the chair opposite Prakash and reached for the decanter of wine on the table between them.

“Perhaps he will respond to pressure of a more primitive sort.”

oOo

Ana felt completely bedraggled—as if the repeating dream of tearing her way through the sweat of a Mehtaran swamp had been real. It was a child's nightmare—the endless path; green, dripping horizon at arm's length; alien sounds spurring her to a haphazard run; the continual sense of pursuit, as if some dim alien beast closed in behind.

Ana was mistress of her subconscious. She manipulated the dreams, massaged them, paused, edited and reread them. On the fourth or thousandth time through, the diadem on her head sprouted real wings and let her soar above the close, green maze.

She saw the high plains—flat, dry and familiar. She winged her way to them and perched, secure, on a low hakwood tree. Her lungs filled with sweet, arid chill. She scanned the horizon for dangers and saw only mirages—shifting, indistinct, threatening. Like dark little dust-jinn, they hung on the fringes of perception.

She closed her eyes and let the mist from the cup of hot channa between her hands caress her cheeks and eyelids. Sun wove through the trees and soothed the dim ache at her temples.

“Are you asleep?”

Ana's eyes came open and tried to focus through the steam. One of her dust-jinn had come to life.

“I'm not sure,” she answered him. Then, “No. I think I must be awake. If I were asleep I wouldn't be so exhausted.”

“I thought you were a career miner. Where's that famous Avasan stamina?”

“Don't scoff, Nathu Rai. You'd do no better after a day in a mine shaft.”

“Undeniably true. Have you eaten breakfast?”

She shook her head. “My stomach is still asleep.”

“Let's go, then.”

“Go?”

“Into Kasi. I think we need to pay the Port Zone Sarngin a visit. We can get something to eat afterwards.”

We are not talking about it, then, Ana thought as she followed Jaya from the House. A crimson aircar waited at the bottom of the wide steps.

Anala stopped to admire it. “Very impressive, but why are we taking it? Horses are-“

“Not nearly as impressive. I want to be especially impressive today. And I want you not to be seen.”

He thumped the nearly opaque surface of the tinted window, then popped the passenger side door open. It rose with the elegance of a bird's wing.

“Your coach, Rani.”

“Your manners are improving.”

He bowed and helped her into the car. It was spacious and comfortable and smelled like any new machine. She was reminded of her family's sand-crawler, then laughed at the absurdity of the comparison.

“What's so funny?”

“I was just struck by the similarity between your car and our sand-crawler. It smelled new once, too.”

Jaya chuckled and started the aircar's near silent engine. They were out on the road before he spoke again.

“Are we going to talk about last night or pretend it didn't happen?”

Ana's face flamed and her stomach quivered. “What needs to be said? It happened.”

“And you don't feel anything?”

“I feel a great many things, mahesa.”

“Name one.”

“Fear.”

He nodded. “I know. I saw that. What are you afraid of? Me?”

“Of drowning ... of losing myself.”

He glanced at her. She made busy staring out at the passing scenery. He started to say something, then grimaced and shook his head.

“I am not an institution,” he said. “I'm a human being.”

Ana turned to look at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means ... ” He shook his head. “It means I was thinking out loud. Ignore me. Govi informs me that there's some clandestine business going on in the back alley of the Badan-Devaki.”

“What?” Ana sat forward too quickly. Her safety harness snapped her back against the seat. “Ouch! And when did he inform you of this?”

“Last night. Correction: This morning.”

“That was the visitor-?”

Jaya nodded. “He says the alley behind the dalali is gated and under guard now, and that couriers are making midnight deliveries to the guards.”

Ana frowned. “Midnight deliveries of what?”

“I don't know. Govi just said they were small packets.”

Ana put her hands on the curving, padded crash panel and stared out at the road.

“That's it, then. The thieves steal the leaf, the Sarngin pick up the victims and take them to the BadanDevaki. You told me Govi got hustled out of his alley by Parva Rishi. He must have been in the way.” She frowned. “Isn't that backwards? If the dalali is paying off the Sarngin, why are deliveries being made to them? Are you sure Govi didn't see a payoff?”