The Skein of Lament (18 page)

The handmaiden had not been exaggerating. Mishani had never taken xatamchi or anything similar before – her cycles were mercifully gentle, and had been all her life – but she knew now why she had been advised against it. She could not imagine being further from sleep as she was now, and she felt marvellously aware despite the late hour. In fact, the inactivity of lying on her sleeping-mat was chafing at her, and she longed to go out and stroll around in the garden at night.

She was just considering doing so when she heard a soft thud through the paper screens on the other side of the room. Someone else was in the garden, she realised with a thrill of fright; and she knew with a sudden certainty that her enemies were coming for her at last.

Her ears strained as she lay there, seeking another sound. Her heart had become very loud in her ears; she felt the pressure of her pulse at her temples. A whispered voice: a short, terse command from one to another, too quiet to make out. It was beyond doubt, then. Now she could only wait to hear the dreadful sound of the paper screens sliding back, to pray to the gods that they would pass by, change their minds somehow, just leave her where she lay.

Her eyes were closed, feigning sleep, when it happened. A whisper of wood sliding against wood, slow and careful so as not to wake her. A soft breeze from outside, carrying with it the fresh, healthy smell of the trees in the garden; and another smell, a faint metallic tang of sweat. Then, overwhelmingly, the stink of matchoula oil, a few breaths of which would render a person unconscious.

The creak of leather as one of them crouched down next to her mat.

She screamed at the top of her lungs, throwing her blanket aside in one violent movement and flinging the handful of red dust that she had kept gathered in her palm. The intruder, surprised, jerked back in alarm, and the dust hit him full in the face: abrasive bathing salts that she had smuggled into her bedroom. He cried out in pain as the scratchy crystals got into his eyes and bubbled on his tongue and lips, fizzing with the moisture there. The second shadow in the room was already lunging at her, but she had rolled off the mat and got to her feet. She was wearing an outdoor robe instead of nightclothes, and her curved dagger sheened in the wan moonlight.

‘You tell your master Chien that I will not be taken so easily!’ she hissed, surprising herself with the strength in her voice; then she cried: ‘
Intruders! Intruders!
’ as loud as she could manage. The gods knew what good that would do – she doubted it would bring any aid, since it was the master of the house that had sent these men – but she was not going to allow herself to be stolen away in the night without making it known to everybody she could.

The one who was not blinded ran at her, oblivious to his companion’s cries. He was wielding a pad of cloth that reeked of matchoula oil. They wanted her alive then, she thought, through the cold panic that was gripping her. That gave her an advantage.

She backed away as he came at her, and slashed wildly with her blade. She was no fighter: she had never been threatened with genuine physical violence in her life beyond the occasional slap from her father, and did not know how to react to it. The intruder swore as the dagger cut into the meat of his forearm, then he smacked her hand aside, and numbing force of the blow sent the blade skidding away. Though slender in build, he was much bigger and stronger than her, and she had no hope of overmatching him. She tried to run, but he grabbed at her, only half-catching her wrist; she spun and tripped on her hem, and in a flail of hair and robes she crashed through the paper screens and fell down the two short wooden steps to the townhouse’s central garden.

She landed on the path that ran around the inside edge of the house, the paper screens falling around her. The impact was enough to bring tears to her eyes. She scrabbled to free herself from the light wooden frames of the screens. Her ankle-length hair was tangled and caught in everything, and she kept kneeling on it and having it wrench painfully at her scalp.

Then the screens were torn away from her, and there was her attacker. In the warm, moonlit night, she could see him better. He was dressed in bandit clothes, and his hair was unkempt, his face swarthy and angry. She slipped out from under his grip, another scream rising from her to wake the household. She got only a few paces across the garden before he caught her, hooking his foot under hers so that she tumbled again, rolling into a flowerbed and cracking her wrist on a rock. Then he was on her, pinning her hands with one arm while she thrashed and kicked.

‘
Get off me!
’ she cried through gritted teeth, and she felt the impact as one of her kicks connected and the man grunted. She thought for a moment that he might release her, but instead he knelt one leg agonisingly hard on her stomach, driving the breath from her, and he wadded the matchoula-soaked cloth in one hand and brought it to her face. Then she was being smothered, and his relentless palm was moving with the shaking of her head and would not be dislodged. The stinging reek was in her nostrils, on her lips, and her lungs burned for oxygen. She bucked and twisted in panic, but she was small and frail and she did not have the strength to get him off her.

Then, a shriek from somewhere in the house, and running feet thumping across the turf. The pad was pulled away suddenly, the knee released, and Mishani gasped as she sucked in the air, wild-eyed.

But the man who held her had only dropped the pad to pull a knife, and it was already driving towards her throat. Something deep and faster than thought made her shift her shoulders and shove with her knees, now that she had the purchase to do so. She bucked him forward enough so that he automatically put out his arms for balance, his knife-stroke arrested; and an instant later an arrow took him through the eye, the force of the shaft throwing him off her and sending him tumbling into a shallow pool at the base of a rockery.

She scrambled to her feet before he had come to rest, sweeping up the knife that he had dropped and brandishing it as she turned to face the ones who were running across the garden. Panting, dishevelled, her mass of black hair in a muddy mess, she glared at the shadows that came for her and held her blade ready.

‘Mistress Mishani!’ said Chien, the foremost of them. Behind him were three guards, one carrying a bow. At the sound of her name, she raised the dagger to throat-height, daring him to come closer. He scrambled to a halt with his hands raised placatingly before him. ‘Mistress Mishani, it’s me. Chien.’

‘I know who you are,’ she told him, an unforgivable tremble in her voice from the shock of being attacked in such a way. ‘Stay back.’

Chien seemed confused. ‘It’s me,’ he repeated.

‘Your men have failed, Chien,’ she said. ‘If you want to kill me, you will have to do it yourself.’

‘
Kill
you? I . . .’ Chien said, lost for words. Behind her, she heard a guard call out. Chien looked over her shoulder. ‘Are there more?’ he asked her.

‘How many did you hire?’ she returned.

The second attacker was dragged out behind her into the garden. He was limp. Poison, she guessed. His employer would want no evidence left.

‘Mistress Mishani . . .’ he said, sounding terribly wounded. ‘How could you think this of me?’

‘Come now, Chien,’ she said. ‘You did not get to where you were without seeing all the angles. And nor did I.’

‘Then you have not considered the right ones, it seems,’ Chien said. He sounded desperate to convince her, almost wheedling. ‘I had nothing to do with this!’

Mishani glanced around. There were no escape routes; guards were everywhere now. She could not fight her way out of here. If they wanted her dead, they could simply shoot her.

‘Why should I believe you, Chien?’ she asked.

‘Put down the blade, and I will
tell
you why,’ he said. ‘But not here. Your business and mine is between us.’

Mishani felt a great weariness suddenly. She tossed the dagger away with an insultingly casual gesture, then gave the merchant a withering look. ‘Lead on, then.’

‘May we drop the façade now?’ Mishani demanded, when they were alone.

They stood in Chien’s accounting office, a sombre room heavy with dark wood and weighty furniture. Scrolls cluttered the shelves and lay across the desk where the merchant usually worked, heaped untidily against stacks of leather-bound tally books. The Blood Mumaka crest hung on one wall, a curving pictogram rendered in gold-edged calligraphy against a grey background. Chien had lit the lanterns in their brackets, and now the room was alive with a soft, warm glow.

‘There is no façade, Mistress Mishani,’ Chien said, then blew out the taper he was holding and put it back in the pot it had come from. He turned to her, and there was new strength in his voice all of a sudden. ‘If I wanted you killed, I could have done it many times by now, and by subtler means. If I wanted to give you up to your father, I could have done that, too.’

‘Why are you still playing this game?’ Mishani said quietly. She might have been muddied and bedraggled, but her poise and gravitas had returned, and she seemed formidable for such a slight woman. ‘Your words betray you. You know the state of play between myself and my father. You have known from the start. If you do not mean me any harm, then why insist on inviting me to stay at your pleasure? You have been well aware of the uncertainty and doubt I have suffered these past days. Does it give you joy to torment me? Your maliciousness shames you. Do with me as you will, since you seem to hold all the cards here; but give up this sham, Chien, for it is getting tiresome now.’

‘You forget who I am and who you are, that you can throw insults around so lightly!’ Chien snapped, his temper igniting. ‘Before you waste another breath on calling me honourless, then listen to me. I
did
know that you were estranged from your father, and that he wanted you back. I also knew that your arrival in Okhamba had been marked by merchants in the Barak Avun’s employ. You got away from Saramyr without being seen by his people, though the gods only know what luck you must have had; but the moment you showed up in Kisanth you were spotted. They were going to wait until you returned to Saramyr, watch what ship you were travelling on, and have someone there to meet you when you disembarked. Those were your father’s men. I’m not. In fact, I’ve made a considerable risk on your behalf, and he most likely now counts me one of his enemies!’

Mishani was pleased that she had rattled him. She did seem to have a way of getting under his skin; she had learned that in the time they had spent together.

‘Go on,’ she said. This was suddenly interesting.

Chien took a steadying breath and stalked to the other side of the room. ‘I had a carriage meet us at the docks, and brought you and your friends here before your father’s men could get to you. It was necessary to take a circuitous route through Hanzean in case we were followed; I imagine you noticed that. The location of my townhouse isn’t generally known.’ He waved a hand to dismiss the point. ‘I saw your friends to safety, but you I knew would not be safe. You said you were heading south. I couldn’t let you. Not until I’d found out who your father had hired and what they knew. They would have been on you before you got ten miles down the Great Spice Road.’ He gazed at her earnestly. ‘So I have kept you here, under my protection, for these past days, while my men have been trying to divine just how much trouble you’re in.’

‘This was your
protection?
’ Mishani said softly. ‘I was almost killed, Chien. You will forgive me if my faith in you has been shaken somewhat.’

Chien looked pained. ‘That is my shame. Not what you would imagine, Mistress Mishani. I have not tormented you or betrayed you. I have tried to safeguard you, and I failed.’

Mishani regarded him coldly. His explanation fitted, at least, but it seemed to her frankly unlikely. Still, she could not think why he would waste the effort on making it up, nor why, if he meant her harm, he had not done it to her by now. Why kill his own men? She supposed that it could be a trick – kill his men to win her trust; she had seen cleverer ploys than that in her time at court – but what advantage would that win him? She considered asking him why he was protecting her at all, then thought better of it. Any answer would likely be a lie. What was there that he thought she could do for him, what
point
was there in his winning her favour? He knew she was politically impotent.

‘I didn’t tell you before,’ Chien said. ‘If you realised that I knew about you and your father, you would have tried to get away from me as soon as you could. That would have only got you caught faster.’

Mishani had surmised this already, just as she had guessed why the intruders started off trying to kidnap her and ended up trying to kill her. Their orders were simple: alive if possible, dead if necessary. She was not in the least surprised at her father’s ruthlessness.

Chien looked at her levelly, his blocky features even, the lantern light limning one side of his shaven head. ‘Mistress Mishani, you may believe me or not, but I was going to tell you all this in the morning to try and prevent you from leaving. I left it too late, it seems. Your father’s men found you, and nearly had your life.’ He walked over to her. ‘If there is anything I can do to atone for my failure to protect you, you have only to name it.’

Mishani studied him for a long moment. She
did
believe him, but that did not mean she trusted him. If he was in alliance with her father, or even if he wasn’t, there was something down the line that he wanted from her, something that she did not even know she had in her power to give. Chien’s attempt at an explanation had made him more puzzling than ever. Was this an elaborate trap, or something entirely unexpected? Was he telling the truth about her father’s men?

It didn’t matter. He owed her now, and she needed him.

‘Take me south,’ she said.