“I beg your indulgence, Mistress,” he said in a more guarded tone. “But I have been told that certain lowborn creatures have been making free with the Queen’s pantry. I am only doing what I am bound to do.”
“Mistaking me for a slave even lower than yourself, you mean?” Tzoja now felt herself on familiar ground again, since she had faced this sort of thing on many more legitimate errands. She made a sign with her fist against her throat that meant, I will swallow my righteous fury for the moment. “Still,” she said, “since I work hard, as you do, to protect that which belongs to the Great Mother of All and to preserve the memory of the Lost Garden, I will not mention you to my lord if you quickly comply with my wishes. I need enough food for a few days’ journey.”
The slave, who could not have been much older than Tzoja herself but whose Norn blood, as it did for her own daughter Nezeru, gave him the look of a much more ancient creature, made a strong gesture of apology. “Again, I ask for your mercy, Mistress, but why do you need such a quantity? Your master’s clan household has already had its allotment.” Starvation had been a familiar companion to the Hikeda’ya in the years after the War of Return’s failure. This menial had doubtless been harshly schooled in taking his guardian’s role seriously.
“Fool of a slave!” she said, making her face as disapproving as she could. “Do you think yourself a temple priest teaching an ignorant child to recite the Prayer for the Queen’s Strength? Or is the mortal blood in you so powerful that it stupefies the rest? Where is it written in the Hamakha Dictates that you may ask questions of a High Magister’s concubine? Do you demand the details of what my husband and master wishes to do with the food as well? If so, I think the Queen’s Teeth might take an interest in your interest.”
The blow was well-aimed. The slave’s face crumpled in poorly hidden fear. “No, Mistress! Please, do not misunderstand me. Usually we are informed of any such need ahead of time.”
“My husband has recently left on a mission given to him by our great queen herself. He left me detailed instructions on what I was to do during his absence. You say you were not informed, but I wonder if it is possible instead that you have lost his orders?” She paused for effect. “Again, I offer to call for the Queen’s Teeth, or even the nearest guards, and we will quickly find a straight path through this crooked passage.”
Surrender. “No, please, Mistress. I am certain the fault was ours.” The slave had the deep black eyes of his Norn blood, but the sallowness of his skin had been lightened by fear until he was almost as white as a pureblooded Hikeda’ya. “Make yourself free and do what you must.” He turned to where several of the less bold kitchen slaves cowered in the background. “We all pray for your husband’s safe return.”
“And the triumphant fulfillment of the queen’s wishes, of course,” Tzoja said.
“Of course, Mistress.”
It was secretly satisfying to make rude halfbloods like this one swallow their own words, but Tzoja knew that at this point someone in her position should either walk away from this undignified discussion or call the guards so that such argumentative slaves could be punished. But there might still be some small advantage she could exploit that would fall within the bounds of accepted behavior. “I am too angry now to look for myself. Here is what I have written down of my husband’s orders.” She held out the page on which she had made her list. “Bring me these things.”
“Of course, Mistress,” said the slave. His now-downcast eyes promised that there would be no further questions. “But none of us can read.”
“Then I will read them to you, and you will make haste to find them all.”
? ? ?
It was a long walk back from the order’s storehouse to House Enduya, Magister Viyeki’s clan compound. Tzoja had to pass several dangerous points, including the rear gate of the Order-house of Echoes, the queen’s trusted communicants, and it felt like an even longer and more perilous journey because she was forced to walk slowly, carrying the two heavy sacks. She thought she must look a bit like Old Longbeard, the blue-hooded figure of Rimmersgard legend who brought gifts of food on Midwinter’s Eve. Longbeard, though, rode a great gray horse; Tzoja had to bear her burdens alone, carried only by her own aching legs.
Another month from now and she would have been able to choose from many nicer things to eat, but spring and summer came late and stayed only briefly in the Nornfells, so most of what she had taken from the kitchens was the same sort of provender on which they had been living since the previous autumn—hard-baked bread, equally hard cheese, and of course a great deal of the dried fungus called “winterbread,” which the Norns prepared in dozens of different ways, although Tzoja had not found one yet that she truly liked. As she trudged along, bowed beneath the weight of the sacks, it was hard not to reminisce over the food of her childhood, hot stews, berries ripe from the vine, bread so light that even the oldest of her neighbors could chew it despite having lost their teeth. It was one way that she would never be a Norn, no matter how long she lived under stony Stormspike.
She hesitated when she reached a crossing, six different featureless tunnels that came together like a crooked star. It was easy at any time to get lost in the great stone hive that was Nakkiga, with no sky overhead to orient herself, but what made it worse now was that she was not, despite her lie to the kitchen slaves, engaged in any kind of lawful activity. She was a resident of House Enduya, and could legitimately take food only from its great kitchens, which of course she dared not do—at least not in large quantities—because word would quickly make its way back to her master’s wife Khimabu, the ruling lady of the clan household. Tzoja would be in even greater danger if it was discovered she had been to the Order of Builders’ storerooms, of course, but Tzoja was counting on the terror of making a wrongful accusation against a noble to keep them quiet until she had finished her preparations and could flee Viyeki’s house. Because if she didn’t, she knew that Khimabu would have her killed: she had all but taunted Tzoja with it at their last meeting.
It was always hard to find her way through the deep darknesses of Nakkiga, even inside her own household. Even after so many years living within the mountain, her eyes had not become accustomed to the way the Norns lived, to the tiny, flickering oil lamps that lit most of the passages, especially away from the main thoroughfares, but which barely gave enough light for a mortal to see her hand before her face. Often Tzoja snuck into her husband’s private garden just to stand for a moment in sunshine, however far it might have fallen from its original source and how many reflective surfaces may have redirected and diminished it along its way. After so many years here under the mountain Tzoja had come to hate the darkness, hate it like a living enemy.
After a moment’s fearful consideration at the six-way crossing, she chose the passage that seemed most familiar, knowing that if she picked the wrong one she might end up somewhere she didn’t belong, carrying bags of stolen food. Beloved concubine of a powerful man or not, she would immediately be imprisoned, which would be as good as a death sentence, since Khimabu could reach her anywhere in Nakkiga. That was why Tzoja had spent the last days preparing her escape to a hiding place that Khimabu would not know, a place that nobody but Viyeki himself would think to look for her. And, if the gods were willing, tonight she would take the rest of the goods and clothing she had so carefully obtained and hide herself there until her beloved returned.