She began to take garments from the cedar wood chest. Dressing to confront a rival was a difficult chore in any situation, but dressing for a rival who embodied a race with a history and outlook so different from hers, a rival who also wanted her dead, made the choices even more complicated.
As she held up and considered two possible gowns, Tzoja wondered if she dared to carry her poison-stone with her. If she did, she would need a place to hide it, a billowing sleeve or something similar where she could reach it quickly when the situation presented itself, and then hide it away again just as swiftly. She lifted it from the secret box where she kept the few mementos of her previous life and held it up to the flickering light of her lamp so she could see its tiny holes, delicate as Perdruinese lace. She was certain it had saved her at least once, when she had first arrived in the household, and she certainly would feel much safer with it somewhere near her hand tonight. But to be caught with such a thing would be a mortal insult; if it were discovered, Khimabu would not need to destroy her in secret, but could claim that Tzoja was carrying it because she herself had put something poisonous in the meal. At the very least, Khimabu could send Tzoja back to the slave barracks without Viyeki’s protection, making her available to any Hikeda’ya male who wished to claim her. She did not doubt that in such a situation, Lady Khimabu would be happy to send a few suitors Tzoja’s way, the rough sort who might have an accident with a fragile mortal woman.
Reluctantly, she set the poison-stone back in the small box and hid it once more behind the panel. If she truly was to dine at Khimabu’s table, it would be without protection. She would be staking everything on one throw of the dice. Still, what chance did she have otherwise? The lady of the house, especially a lady as well born and well connected as Khimabu, always had all the power. Tzoja, as usual, would only have her wits.
Such an uneven contest, she thought. But is life itself any different? That is a game nobody wins. Even the Hikeda’ya eventually must die.
Except for the queen, of course, Tzoja reminded herself. In any country, in any time, the Norn Queen remained the exception to all rules.
? ? ?
“I give you greetings in the name of the Queen and the Garden.” Lady Khimabu did not rise from her low couch. Her pet ermine poked its head out of her voluminous sleeve and gave Tzoja a brief, critical appraisal before disappearing once more.
“As do I, great lady,” Tzoja replied. “I thank you for inviting one such as me to your table. The honor is above me.” She waited to be asked to sit, although since there were only two couches set out, it was fairly obvious where her place was to be.
Khimabu did not seem in a great hurry to indulge her. “No need for false modesty, dear younger sister Tzoja. All know the great service you have performed for our master’s house. But I see you have dressed with a modesty that befits your humility.”
Tzoja bowed. She had put on her finest gown, of course, an intricate weave of flowing, faintly shimmering spinsilk beaded with tiny pearls. This was just Khimabu’s way of poking at her, reminding her of her low station in the household. The gown was not showy, it was true, but no auxiliary wife, still less a mortal one, would make the mistake of outdressing the mistress of the household. Khimabu wore a beautiful, billowing swirl of pale green with gold tones that glowed beneath the outer fabric, the whole garment covered with an elaborate fretwork of knotted cords in darker green. Donning such a gown was the work of several servants over a goodly amount of time. Khimabu’s beauteous swirl of dark hair and her peerless face had also been brought to perfection with the help of many trained hands.
“Come, sit, Tzoja,” she said. “There is no need for such formality with me. The sort of intimacy we share makes us family!” Khimabu spread her long fingers just below her chin, an ancient formal gesture called “the fan” that indicated a kind of pleasure at the speaker’s own daring.
As Tzoja lowered herself onto the couch with as much grace as she could manage—none of the half-dozen servants came forward to help her—the ermine poked its head out of Khimabu’s sleeve again. Its eyes were like black stones set into the white fur of the face. It abruptly slithered across its mistress and vanished into her other sleeve. The creature’s brief reappearance gave Tzoja the beginning of an idea.
“You are most kind, my lady,” she said out loud. “It is an honor to join you. I have always thought this was one of the most beautiful rooms in this beautiful house.”
In truth, the dining salon was quite striking, a room many times as high as it was wide, not uncommon among the Hikeda’ya, whose greatest sign of wealth and privilege was access to the light wells that stretched across the northern and southern faces of Do’Nakkiga—the mountain Tzoja had once called Stormspike. Never in her childhood had she ever dreamed that she would one day be living in such a terrifying, infamous place.
The salon’s stone walls were softened ever so slightly by long hangings decorated with what Tzoja had come to understand was a sort of poetry, bits of old tales about the Garden or praise of the Queen, painted in ways Viyeki’s people found pleasing to the eye. The few pieces of furniture in the room were spare, made from polished black and gray stone, another habit of the Hikeda’ya, who largely shunned color in their homes, though not always on their persons: the green gown her enemy wore would be considered a very daring thing to wear outside of this house.
Khimabu was beautiful. There was no doubting it. Tzoja had grown up among people who thought the Norns demons and monsters, but if they could see Khimabu’s sculpted features, her long, regal nose, her splendid high cheekbones and large, liquid black eyes, they would have had to admit she was a lovely demon indeed.
“You stare at me,” Khimabu said, and made the fan sign again, but this time with a small twist at the end that suggested a certain impatience. “Has it really been so long since we have spent time together, dear younger sister, that you have forgotten how I look? I know that time seems to pass more swiftly for your people.” A glint in the eye, the meaning quite clear. “Forgive me if I have been forgetful.”
“No, Lady. I am, as always, astonished to find your beauty is even greater in life than it was in my memory.”
Khimabu laid one finger beside her cheek, a gesture Tzoja did not immediately recognize. “You flatter me, my dear one. You have charms of your own, as you well know.”
In other words: My husband liked you well enough to bed you. And if you hadn’t borne a child, you would have been back in the slave pens long ago, or worse. Tzoja spread her hands in what she knew was a clumsy version of a Hikeda’ya gesture, but whose meaning was too clear to mistake: How can anyone guess what males will do? “I am grateful,” is what she said out loud.
Khimabu made a tiny gesture. One of the Bound servants left his position against the wall and was at his mistress’ side so quickly he seemed almost to dissolve and reform. “You may serve,” she told him.
The ermine was out again and watching Tzoja, whiskers twitching. She had never liked Khimabu’s pet. Its eyes were too bright, too . . . intrusive. It felt like she was being watched by an unpleasant child. But for once, as she watched it frisking in and out of Khimabu’s sleeves and around the low couch, she was grateful for its presence.
The servants brought dishes to the table, roasted glacier waxwings and the bitter puju bread made from the barley grown in the cold valleys below Stormspike’s eastern flank, cooked in the ashes of a fire until it was as crisp and hard as wood. The Hikeda’ya had a great fondness for it, but Tzoja had never learned to like it. All she ever tasted was the ashes.
As she made appropriate sounds about the arrangement and quality of the food, she took a morsel of puju in her hand and broke off a piece, then pretended to take a bite, rolling it between thumb and fingers until she had made it into a stiff ball. She then dropped it onto the floor as surreptitiously as she could, and kicked it with equal caution toward Khimabu’s couch.
“And the birds look especially delicious,” she said out loud, doing her best not to make it obvious she was also watching the floor. As was the custom, the waxwings were served all but whole, feathers scorched away but feet and heads still attached, the beaks like black thorns, the eyes like burned currants.
The ermine had noticed the morsel of bread, and now balanced on the edge of the couch, nose twitching. It looked up at her with a nasty twinkle, as if it knew what she was doing, but after a moment, as Tzoja pretended to take another bite, it leaped down and snapped up the small tidbit, then slithered back onto the couch.