Quiet Knives (4 page)

Yes, footsteps; he heard them clearly. And
voices. The sudden, ghastly sound of a gun going off.

The scholar grabbed his daughter's shoulder,
spinning her around.

"Quickly--to the front door!"

She ran, astonishingly fleet, despite the
hindrance of her robes. Alas that she was not fleet enough.

Baquar Hafeez was waiting for them inside
the front hallway, and there was a gun in his hand.

* * *

"Again," Scholar Hafeez said, and the large
man he called Danyal lifted her father's right hand, bent the
second finger back.

Reyman Bhar screamed. Inas, on her knees
beside the chair in which Scholar Hafeez took his ease, stared,
stone-faced, through her veil, memorizing the faces of these men,
and the questions they asked.

It was the
curiat
they wanted. And
it was the
curiat
which Reyman Bhar was peculiarly determined that they not
have. And why was that? Inas wondered. Surely not because he had
made it a gift to a daughter. He had only to order her to fetch it
from its hiding place and hand it to Baquar Hafeez. What could a
daughter do, but obey?

And
yet--
hidden knowledge has
power
.

"The
curiat
, old friend," Scholar Hafeez
said again--patient, so patient. "Spare yourself any more pain.
Only tell me who has the
curiat
, and I will leave you and your
household in peace."

"Why?" her father asked--a scholar's
question, despite his pain.

"There are those who
believe it to be the work of infidels," Scholar Hafeez said
smoothly, and yet again: "The
curiat
, Reyman. Where is
it?"

"It is not for you to know," her father
gasped, his voice hoarse from screaming, his left arm useless,
dislocated by Danyal in the first round of questions.

Scholar Hafeez sighed, deeply,
regretfully.

"I was afraid that you might prove
obstinate. Perhaps something else might persuade you."

It happened so quickly, she had no time to
understand--pain exploded in her face and she was flung sideways to
the floor, brilliant color distorting her vision. Her wrist was
seized and she was lifted. More pain. She tried to get her feet
under her, but she was pulled inexorably upward, sandals dangling.
Her vision spangled, stabilized--Danyal's face was bare inches from
hers. He was smiling.

Somewhere, her father was shouting.

"Your pardon, old friend?"
Scholar Hafeez was all solicitude. "I did not quite hear the
location of the
curiat
?"

"Release my daughter!"

"Certainly. After you
disclose the location of the
curiat
. Such a small thing, really,
when weighed against a daughter's virtue."

"Inas--" her father began, and what followed
was not in the common tongue, but in that of her mother, and they
were uttered as a prayer.

"Opportunity comes, daughter, be stout and
true. Honor your mother, in all her names."

Scholar Hafeez made a small
sound of disappointment, and moved a hand. "The
ubaie
, Danyal."

Inas saw his hand move. He crumbled the
fragile fabrics in his fist and tore them away, unseating her
headcloth. Her hair spilled across her shoulders, rippling
black.

Danyal licked his lips, his eyes now openly
upon her chest.

There was a scream of rage, and from the
corner of her eye she saw her father, on his knees, a bloody blade
in his least-damaged hand, reaching again toward Hafeez.

Danyal still held her, his attention on his
master; Inas brought both of her knees up, aiming to crush his
man-parts, as Thelma Delance had described.

The villain gasped, eyes rolling up. His
grip loosened, she fell to the floor, rolling, in order to confound
the aim of the gun, and there was a confusion of noises, and her
father shouting "Run!"--and run she did, her hair streaming and her
face uncovered, never looking back, despite the sounds of gunfire
behind her.

* * *

THE HOUSE WAS IN the merchant district of
the city of Harap, a walk of many days from the prefecture Coratu,
whose principal cities, Iravati and Lahore-Gadani, had lately
suffered a sudden rash of explosions and fires and unexplained
deaths. There were those who said it was a judgment from the gods;
that Lahore-Gadani had become too assertive; and Iravati too
complacent in its tranquility. The priests had ordered a cleansing,
and a month long fast for the entire prefecture. Perhaps it would
be enough.

In Harap, though.

In Harap, at that certain house, a boy
crossed the street from out of the night-time shadows and made a
ragged salaam to the doorman.

"Peace," he said, in a soft, girlish voice.
"I am here to speak with Jamie Moore."

The doorman gave him one bored look.
"Why?"

The boy hefted the sack he held in his left
hand. "I have something for him."

"Huh." The doorman considered it, then swung
sideways, rapping three times on the door. It opened and he said to
the one who came forward, "Search him. I'll alert the boss."

* * *

THE SEARCH HAD DISCOVERED weapons, of
course, and they had been confiscated. The bag, they scanned,
discovering thereby the mass and material of its contents. Indeed,
the search was notable in that which it did not discover--but
perhaps, to off-worlders, such things mattered not.

The door to the searching chamber opened and
the doorman looked in.

"You're fortunate," he said. "The boss is
willing to play."

So, then, there was the escort, up to the
top of the house, to another door, and the room beyond, where a man
sat behind a desk, his books piled, open, one upon the other, a
notetaker in his hand.

Tears rose. She swallowed them, and bowed
the bow of peace.

"I'm Jamie Moore," the man behind the desk
said. "Who are you?"

"I am Inas Bhar, youngest daughter of
Scholar Reyman Bhar, who died the death to preserve what I bring
you tonight."

The man looked at her, blue eyes--outworlder
eyes--bland and uninterested.

"I don't have a lot of time or patience," he
said. "Forget the theatrics and show me what you've got."

She swallowed, her throat
suddenly dry. This--this was the part of all her careful plans that
might yet go awry. She opened the bag, reached inside and pulled
out the
curiat
.

"For you," she said, holding it up for him
to see, "from Thelma Delance."

There was a long silence, while he looked
between her and the box. Finally, he held out his hands.

"Let me see."

Reluctantly, she placed
the
curiat
in his
hands, watching as he flicked the ivory hooks, raised the lid,
fished out a volume, and opened it at random.

He read a page, the next, riffled to the
back of the book and read two pages more. He put the book back in
the box and met her eyes.

"It's genuine," he said and gave her the
honor of a seated bow. "The Juntavas owes you. What'll it be? Gold?
A husband with position? I realize the options are limited on this
world, but we'll do what we can to pay fair."

"I do not wish to marry. I
want..." She stopped, took a breath, and met the bland, blue eyes.
"My father was a scholar. He taught me to be a scholar--to read, to
reason, to
think
.
I want to continue--in my father's memory."

He shrugged. "Nice work, if you can get
it."

Inas drew herself up. "I
speak five dialects and three languages," she said. "I am adept
with the higher maths and with astronomy. I read the mercantile,
scholarly and holy scripts. I know how to mix the explosive
skihi
and--" The man
behind the desk held up a hand.

"Hold up. You know how to
mix
skihi
? Who
taught you that?"

She pointed at the
curiat
. "Page
thirty-seven, volume three."

He whistled. "You found the cipher, did you?
Clever girl." He glanced thoughtfully down at the box.

"You wouldn't have used any of that formula,
would you? Say, back home or in Lahore-Gadani?"

Inas bowed, scholar to scholar. "They killed
my father. He had no sons to avenge him."

"Right."

More silence--enough that Inas began to
worry about the reasoning going on behind those blue outworlder
eyes. It would, after all, be a simple thing to shoot her--and far
more merciful than the punishment the priests would inflict upon
her, were she discovered dressed in a boy's tunic and trousers, her
face uncovered, her hair cut and braided with green string.

"Your timing's good," Jamie Moore said
abruptly. "We've got a sector chief checking in tomorrow. What I
can do, I can show you to the chief, and the two of you can talk.
This is sector chief business, understand me?"

Inas bowed. "I understand, Jamie Moore.
Thank you."

"Better hold that until you meet the chief,"
he said, and the door opened behind her, though she had not seen
him give a signal.

"We'll stand you a bath, a meal and a bed,"
he said, and jerked his head at the doorman. "Get her downstairs.
Guard on the door."

He looked at her once more. "What happens
next is up to you."

* * *

SHE SAT ON THE edge of
the
chatrue
--well,
no she didn't. Properly a
chatrue
, a female's bed, would be
hidden by a curtain at a height so that even a tall man could not
see over. This was hardly a bed meant for a woman....

She sat on the edge of the bed then, with
the daybreak meal in dishes spread around her, amazed and
appreciative at the amount of food she was given to break her
fast.

But, after all--she had
come to the house in the clothes of a boy, admitted to taking a
son's duty of retribution to herself; and agreed to meet with
the
sector chief
.
These were all deeds worthy of male necessities; hence they fed her
as a male would be fed, with two kinds of meat, with porridge of
proper sweetness and with extra honey on the side, with fresh juice
of the gormel-berry--and brought her clean boy's clothes in the
local style, that she might appear before the sector chief in
proper order.

She had slept well, waking only once, at the
sound of quiet feet in the stairway. Left behind when she woke then
was a half-formed dream: In it she had lost her veils to Danyal,
but rather than leer, he had screamed and run, terrified of what he
had seen revealed in her face.

Too late now to run, she
thought as she slipped back into sleep, both Danyal and her
father's false friend had fallen to her vengence. And the
curiat
was in the hands
of the infidel.

Inas ate all the breakfast, leaving but some
honey. There had been too many days since her father's death when
food had been scarce; too many nights when her stomach was empty,
for her to stint now on sustenance.

"Hello, child!" A voice called from outside
the door. There followed a brisk knock, with the sound of laughter
running behind it. "Your appointment begins now!"

* * *

THE NAME OF JAMIE Moore's boss was Sarah
Chang. She was small and round, with crisp black hair bristling all
over her head, and slanting black eyes. Her clothing was simple--a
long-sleeved shirt, open at the throat, a vest, trousers and boots.
A wide belt held a pouch and a holster. Her face was naked, which
Inas had expected. What she had not expected was the jolt of shock
she felt.

Sarah Chang laughed.

"You're the one pretending to be a boy," she
commented, and Inas bowed, wryly.

"I am an exception," she said. "I do not
expect to meet myself."

"
Here
, you're an exception," the woman
corrected, and pointed at one of the room's two chairs, taking the
other for herself. "Sit. Tell me what happened. Don't leave
anything out. But don't dawdle."

So, she had told it. The
gift of the
curiat
; the visit of Scholar Hafeez to her father; Humaria's
wedding; the violation of her father's study, and his brutal
questioning; her escape into the night, and return to a house of
the unjustly murdered--father, books and servant. Her
revenge.

"You mixed a batch of skihi, blew up a
couple buildings, disguised yourself as a boy and walked away from
it," Sarah Chang said, by way of summing up. She shook her head.
"Pretty cool. How'd you think of all that?"

Inas moved her hands. "I
learned from Thelma Delance. The recipe for
skihi
was in her
curiat
. She disguised herself as a
man in order to pursue her scholarship."

"So she did." The woman closed her eyes.
"Any idea what I should do with you?"

Inas licked her lips. "I wish to be a
scholar."

"Not the line of work women usually get
into, hereabouts." Sarah Chang's eyes were open now, and watching
carefully.

"Thelma Delance--"

"Thelma was an outworlder," the boss
interrupted. "Like I am. Like Jamie is."

This woman possessed a man's hard purpose,
Inas thought; she would do nothing for pity. She raised her
chin.

"Surely, then, there is some place where I,
too, would be an outworlder, and free to pursue my life as I
wish?"