The Fire Seer (5 page)

“Flood and fire!” A boy sat down across from her. “Do you not know how to eat lirry fruit?”

Taya shook her head. Apparently not.

“Spit it out, dummy!”

Red-faced but too well-mannered to spit, Taya fished the fruit out of her mouth.

“This is how you eat a lirry fruit.” The boy picked up a fruit from her tray. He pulled a knife from his belt, sliced a gash in the fruit, and squeezed the pulp into his mouth. “See? You don’t eat the rind. It’s not edible.”

“Oh. Thanks. I’ve never seen one of these before.” Taya picked up a lirry fruit and imitated him, squeezing the pulp into her mouth, careful not to spill any droplets of juice. It was surprisingly tasty—sweet and almost creamy, with no bitterness at all. She looked shyly up at the boy. He was one of the new initiates, like herself, only he had facial tattoos, which meant he was ruling caste. She felt flattered by his attention.

The boy smiled. “Where are you from? Your accent’s funny.”

“Downriver,” said Taya.

“Swamp country?” asked the boy.

“Almost. North of the delta—banana country.”

“My name’s Mandir,” said the boy. “Mandir isu Sarrum.”

Taya froze. Isu Sarrum? This boy was not only from the ruling caste, but the royal family. What was he doing here at Mohenjo Temple? She stared at him, studying his features. He was young, around her age or a bit older. But he was tall for his age, well-built, darkly handsome. His eyes were strange. Was that cruelty she saw in them?

“Now you’re supposed to tell me your name,” said Mandir isu Sarrum.

“Taya.”

“Taya isu what?”

She hesitated. What was a royal going to think of someone like her? “Taya isu Ikkarum.”

“Ikkarum?” Mandir laughed. “You’re farmer caste? I noticed your hair, but I figured they just cut it shorter where you come from.”

“I’m farmer caste,” she said softly. Now he knew why she’d never eaten lirry fruit.

“You lie,” said Mandir, taking another fruit from her plate. “Farmers never have the Gift.”

“But they do,” said Taya. “Sometimes.” The Coalition representative who’d brought her here had tried to explain to her why farmers rarely—but sometimes—possessed the Gift. Something about how the Gift traveled in bloodlines, often disappearing for generations and suddenly popping up again. Something about how the nonmagical sons and daughters of Coalition
ilittu
were released into the artisan and ruling castes. She’d smiled and nodded and pretended to understand.

“Even if you were a farmer with the Gift,” he said, “the Coalition couldn’t teach you anything. Do you even know how to read?”

“They will teach me to read,” said Taya.

“That’s stupid,” said Mandir. “You’ll be years behind, and you have an entire language to learn, not to mention history and numbers and things.”

“I’ll work extra hard.” She did not say out loud what the representative had told her in confidence, that while farmer-caste initiates were at an early disadvantage at the Temple, they often did well in the long run because they were accustomed to hard work, unlike initiates from the ruling class, who’d grown up indolent and lazy.

A line appeared in Mandir’s forehead, as if he couldn’t figure out what to make of her, when three other ruling-caste initiates sauntered into the hall.

“Hey, little prince!” called one of them. “That your sweetheart?”

Little prince? Taya knew he was from the royal family, but she’d assumed he was a distant cousin or a nephew or something. Could Mandir be the get of the king or prince of the valley?

“No,” said Mandir, scrambling up from the table. He joined the boys and walked away, but after a moment, he glanced back at Taya with a half-smile and said, “Bye, banana girl.”

Chapter 7: Hrappa

After a refreshing and much-needed stop at the public baths under the Citadel, Taya reined up in front of the guesthouse. She hopped off Pepper and handed the mare’s reins to Rasik.

After Rasik rode off with their horses, Mandir asked, “Your house or mine?”

Taya sighed. “This is business, Mandir.”

He grinned. “Look where your mind goes—straight into the sewers.”

“You’re not funny,” said Taya. “My place, to talk about the vision from Isatis and nothing else.”

“Let me fix your headdress.”

“No,” said Taya.

“It’s crooked.”

“I don’t care.” Allowing him to put his hands on her would send entirely the wrong message. Not only that, but Mandir was way too physically attractive. She didn’t want her body responding to what her head and heart knew would lead to disaster.

“Yes, but it bothers me.”

“Good,” said Taya, opening the door to her guesthouse.

She sat down at the little table and waited for Mandir to join her, hoping they could get this over with quickly. Mandir barred the front door and moved about the house, inspecting each nook and checking the outdoor courtyard, which struck Taya as silly until she recalled the old man with the knife. Finally Mandir sat down with her at the table. “What did Isatis show you?” he asked.

“Everything,” said Taya. “I saw Hunabi’s death, and I saw our jackal.”

“Isatis showed you the jackal?” Mandir straightened. “We’ll be done here before the cotton blooms. Who is he?”

“She. A young woman, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Farmer caste, I would guess, by the way she was dressed.” Taya related what she’d seen in the vision.

Mandir rubbed his chin. “A man and a woman arguing. Then another woman shows up and murders the man. Lovers’ quarrel?”

Taya frowned. “I don’t know. I think if two women were fighting over the same man, the jackal would have killed the other woman. Killing the man defeats her purpose.”

“Depends on the purpose,” said Mandir. “And she might have killed both of them. There were two more murder victims after this one, both women. One of them could have been the one from your vision.”

“That’s possible,” said Taya, nodding. “We’ll call that woman who saw what happened the witness. She must know who the murderer is.”

“Or
knew
,” said Mandir. “If you were a murderer, would you leave a witness alive?”

Someone rapped at the door. Taya jumped in her seat, but Mandir laid a hand over hers. “It’s probably the attendant with lunch.” Taya yanked her hand away, but Mandir was already on his feet, heading for the door. He answered it and spoke to the attendant. “Send for Rasik. We need to speak with him.” Then he returned with two plates, each heavy with flatbread, barley, and strips of lamb.

“Why Rasik?” Taya asked.

“I want the details on Hunabi’s and Kalbi’s marriage contract, the one that was under negotiation before the murder happened,” said Mandir. “It might explain what we saw in your vision.”

Taya nodded, cutting a pocket in her flatbread and loading it with the barley and lamb. They ate in silence until Rasik arrived. Mandir asked him about the marriage contract.

“There are no details,” said Rasik. “No agreement had been drawn up.”

“Who was the girl?” asked Mandir.

“Kana isu Kasirum, the daughter of Bodhan isu Kasirum.”

“What?” said Taya. “I’ve heard that name—Bodhan. Was this girl one of the murder victims?”

“You’re thinking of Kana’s sister,” said Rasik. “
She
was murdered. Kana is still alive.”

“Thanks, Rasik, that’s all we need for now,” said Mandir. Rasik departed, and Mandir barred the door again. “It’s clear where we should go next,” he said, sitting back down at the table. “We need to speak to Bodhan and his daughter.”

Taya nodded eagerly. “If there was a love triangle going on, Kana might be the jackal. Or the witness. And even if she’s not, the trip won’t be wasted. We need to talk to Bodhan anyway, to investigate his daughter’s murder.”

“
Isu Kasirum
,” mused Mandir. “Bodhan is a cloth merchant. Why would the magistrate, the highest ranking man in the entire city of Hrappa, marry his sons into a lower caste?”

“How should I know?” said Taya. “I’ve no experience with the customs of the ruling caste.”

“The most common reason is money,” said Mandir. “Perhaps the magistrate has a financial problem. Or the girl might be an extraordinary beauty, or there might be a lack of suitable marriage partners in the ruling caste. But nine times out of ten, it’s money.”

“Rasik said a lot of the farmers have contracts to grow cotton for a Hrappan cloth merchant. I’ll bet this Bodhan is the merchant he was speaking of. What about the nature of the marriage? Could that have something to do with the murders?” Ruling-caste polyandrous marriages seemed, to her, foreign and strange. The farmer and artisan castes did not practice that sort of marriage. It was forbidden to their castes by law, though it was said to produce stronger children.

“You mean the fact that the artisan-caste girl, who probably grew up thinking she’d marry one man in a single marriage, suddenly found out she was going to be marrying two brothers? And maybe didn’t like the idea?”

“Well,” said Taya, “I hadn’t got that far in my thinking. But I don’t know much about it. How do ruling-caste women feel about marrying two or more men?”

Mandir shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not a ruling-caste woman.”

“But you’re a ruling-caste man. You’ve spent time in that kind of household.”

“Not in that kind of household, no,” said Mandir.

“You’re the son of Tufan isu Sarrum. He’s in a multiple marriage with his brothers, to the princess Danitia. I know she’s not your mother, and Tufan had multiple households, but surely you had some exposure to...your father’s legitimate marriage.” She winced inwardly, realizing she might be touching on a sensitive subject.

“I never so much as set foot in the palace,” snapped Mandir. “You’re the woman, so you should be answering this question. Before your Gift was discovered, you probably expected to be contracted in marriage. Didn’t you?”

“Of course. Negotiations were already in progress.”

“And how did you feel about it?”

Taya hesitated. “It’s not relevant. Farmer-caste marriages are different. A farmer’s wife must keep house, spin thread, mend clothes, join her husband in the fields at harvest time—”

“Forget that, it’s not what I’m talking about,” said Mandir. “How did you feel about the prospect of sleeping with a man who was chosen for you and who you barely knew?”

“Well, no woman looks forward to that part,” said Taya. “Unless she just happens to be married off to a man she’s fond of, which is rare.”

“All right, so imagine you’re being married off to two men, and you’ll be expected to sleep with both of them.”

“At the same time?”

Mandir rolled his eyes. “What sort of perverts do you imagine my people are? Alternating nights, Taya.”

Her cheeks warmed. The ribald jokes she’d heard in her old farming village had implied a truly shared bed for polyandrous families; it had never occurred to her that those jokes weren’t based on reality. “Well, it’s unlikely I’d be in love with even one of them, let alone both. But it’s said that the more fathers, the stronger the seed, and the stronger the child.”

“See, it’s complicated,” said Mandir. “It could be the daughter was in love with one brother and not the other, and murdered the one she didn’t like. But she’d be taking an enormous risk in doing so, and would she really sacrifice the well-being of her future children?”

Taya shrugged. “There are some women who care about nothing but their own happiness. Never mind the children, or anyone else who gets in the way.”

“And we cannot speculate, knowing nothing about this particular woman,” said Mandir. “Let’s go to Bodhan’s household and have a look. You saw both the jackal and the witness in your vision. Would you recognize them if you saw them in the flesh?”

“Yes,” said Taya. Then she hesitated. “Well...the witness, definitely. I saw her up close and I remember a lot of details. The jackal, probably, but she was farther away.”

“We need a signaling system,” said Mandir. “When we see Bodhan’s daughter, I want you to sketch a ‘W’ on the palm of my hand if you recognize her as the witness, a ‘J’ if you recognize her as the jackal.”

“Or we could use code words,” said Taya.

“Code words are too obvious, especially if we end up using them repeatedly.”

So much for Taya’s plan of having no physical contact with Mandir. “All right, signals then. What if I see her and I’m not certain if she’s either?”

“In that case, make a single slash mark across my palm. If you know for sure she’s neither the jackal nor the witness, make two crossing slash marks. Show me.” He laid his palm on the table and closed his eyes. “Make each symbol for me.”

Reluctantly, Taya took Mandir’s hand. It was warm and dry. She sketched each symbol on his palm, one at a time, and Mandir named them without looking.

“If you’ll excuse me,” said Taya, “I have tablet work I have to do now.”

Mandir’s eyebrows rose. “Tablet work?”

Taya nodded. “All visions from Isatis must be documented.”

“Can it wait? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

Whatever Mandir wanted to discuss—something personal and uncomfortable, no doubt, knowing him—Taya wanted no part of it. She shook her head. “I have to do it before the memory fades.”

“We’ll talk later, then.” Mandir took his plate and departed through the courtyard door.

∞

Taya fetched several tablets and a stylus from her saddlebags and, relieved to be alone, settled down to her task. She hated having an audience for this sort of work. Despite nine years of concentrated effort at the temple, writing remained slow and difficult for her. Mandir had teased her about it incessantly when she was younger, and to her shame, she had never overcome the fault. She’d been afraid the Coalition wouldn’t qualify her as an
ilittum
at all, but her unusual fluency in speaking the mother tongue and in the practical use of magic had made up for her deficiencies in literacy, and she’d scraped through.

She sprinkled water on the tablets to wet the clay, picked up her stylus, and began. First she committed to the tablet the setting: the time of day, the dry weather, the weedy patch of ground where she’d summoned Isatis and been granted her vision. She then launched into physical descriptions of the man and women in the vision, including every detail about their size, coloration, and clothes. Then the sequence of events. She toiled over the work for an hour, and then another. She sighed, shaking out cramped fingers. She had almost reached the point where Hunabi had burst into flame when her mind refused to focus anymore, and she flung the stylus down in exasperation.