The wall of the palace overlooking the square includes a wide balcony. The restless crowd quiets as people carrying parasols and huge feathered fans take up stations at each corner, and a file of masked people emerges. It’s too far away to make out the details of the masks but I am sure they represent all the animals from the menageries.
The morning sun clears the eastern hills. Its light spills across the balcony just as a man strides out to the railing to stand in that golden glow. He wears an ankle-length keldi and a feathered cape but no vest or jacket. Instead his chest is painted with swirls, like rings splintering apart to become swords and spears. A lion mask conceals his face but I know who it is even as the soldiers standing at attention in the square cheer him with thunderous shouts.
“Inarsis! General Inarsis! Protector Inarsis!”
He lifts a hand palm out, poised and waiting.
We are all waiting for the Custodian of the land, the representative of the Mother of All who shares Her bounty among all Her people. A wind lifts off the flowing waters to brush a ripple through the white awning that shades the palace.
She comes, a woman wearing a simple linen sheath dress, the ordinary clothing of everyday Efean women. She carries in one arm what at first glimpse I think must be a cornucopia until I realize it is a baby tucked in her strong embrace. Her cloud of black hair frames the mask of feathers she wears, shaped in the form of a butterfly.
Ro has the smug look of a man whose secrets have stayed hidden. He knew, and he never gave us even a hint.
Our mother is queen of Efea.
22
The royal palace and compound in Ibua is older than the king’s and queen’s palaces in Saryenia. According to tradition it was built by the order of Serenissima the First in the early days of her reign with her younger brother, Kliatemnos. Its rectangular courtyards and buildings with roofs curved like ships look foreign, not like the palace in Saryenia, which blends Efean and Saroese styles.
Instead of courtiers and servants, refugees crowd the courtyards and audience halls. People stand in lines to receive platters of fried millet porridge. A dame wearing an elephant mask pushed up over her white hair addresses a staggeringly ancient old woman supported on either side by young people.
“Thirty-two from your village? How many children? What craftspeople and artisans? How many recruits for the army? We need laborers as well.” At her side, clerks are recording the numbers. “And you, Honored Dame, when you are recovered from the journey, will you speak with our menageries council? We are interested in whatever you recall from your childhood. You are the most precious treasure-house of all.”
“That group fled from the southern coast, where the East Saroese army is pillaging and burning,” Ro says over his shoulder to me. He walks beside Maraya with a hand tucked under her elbow, making sure everyone sees he is treating a Saroese-looking woman with honor and courtesy.
It isn’t that she and Polodos are spit on or shoved, but people look at them as if wondering why Patrons ought to walk here at all. Yet among the refugees I see Saroese faces: a pale child seated amid darker faces plays a clapping game sung in Efean; a young Saroese soldier casually keeps order alongside two Efean comrades; and that rarest thing of all, a pregnant Saroese woman in the company of an Efean man who holds an older child who clearly belongs to them both.
When we pass into the inner courtyard I expect to be shown into the private wing where the nobility luxuriate in wealth and isolation, but this area is also crowded with refugees. Instead we make our way to a vast kitchen bigger than the compound I grew up in. An army of cooks and assistants sweats in the heat of hearth fires and griddles. Vats of porridge simmer. Wagons disgorge baskets of fruit and sacks of grain, each arrival meticulously recorded by yet more harried clerks.
Behind the main kitchen lies an herb garden. Here, at last, we find Mother seated on a reed mat nursing Safarenwe. Cook is setting out a simple, nourishing meal on a low table, helped by faces I recognize: the household women Bettany and I rescued from Akheres. It reminds me painfully of the home we once had, where we all knew who we were and did our work together.
Denya sits off by herself in the shade sewing, while Amaya stands at the far gate with her arms crossed, arguing with someone I can’t see.
Her voice has always had the ability to penetrate any space she is in. “Honored Dame, the Custodian will be glad to hear petitions after she has taken a meal and fed her baby. How is it you are come to this gate? Petitions are to be brought first to the outer council so that the Honored Custodian is not overwhelmed by a thousand voices each claiming her time. No, your complaint is not important enough to disturb her!”
Ro gestures with the arm that is not assisting Maraya. “I would love to make an actress of her. Look at that posture! Imagine that beautiful voice uplifted by my magnificent words!”
“A romance devoutly to be wished,” I murmur. I can’t help but notice how many people are looking him over as we cross the garden, and how he struts to attract their gazes.
Mother sees us. Her expression sharpens from one of drowsy lassitude into a look of almost painful joy and relief.
“My dearest girls! We were told you’d been rescued but now I can truly believe it.”
Her smile is the balm I have been craving. Maraya and I swarm forward like eager puppies and settle on either side of her on the mat so as not to jostle the vigorously nursing baby. Only now, resting against her, do I finally feel safe.
“Maraya, you are well?” she says calmly enough although her voice is hoarsened by emotion.
“I am well enough, Mother. But what really matters is that we took possession of much of the temple Archives, including treatises and tracts locked up long ago. There is a great deal for me to investigate.” She rests a hand on her belly and smiles at Polodos, who waits anxiously a few steps away.
“You must sit and eat with us, Polodos. Then, if you wish some occupation in our great enterprise, you can see how badly we need clerks to keep order amid this upheaval.”
“Yes, Doma. If I am allowed to participate.”
“Why would it not be allowed, if you have the desire and the skill? You are my daughter’s husband, after all.”
“Not by law, Doma.”
“Saroese law no longer rules us. Under Efean tradition two people may marry by declaring it is so in the presence of their families. Now, how is your Efean script coming?”
“It is coming well, Doma.”
“You must call her ‘Honored Lady,’” says Ro, in Efean.
Polodos glances at him, alert to the challenge in the poet’s tone, but he’s too wise to engage. “My script comes along better than my spoken Efean, Doma,” he goes on in Saroese. “Reading and writing are easier for me than conversation.”
An Efean boy wearing a spotless keldi hurries up to unroll a second mat beside Mother.
“Monkey!” I cry. “So all of the household did get here safely from Akheres.”
He hunches his shoulders. “Yes, Doma,” he mutters.