“Then who is truly the fool, High Queen Miriamele? After all, you are the one who married me. But if you are ordering me to desist . . .”
“Save your temper, husband. I called you a name, but I did not tell you to stop.”
51
Stolen Scales
Count Eolair remembered the name Khendraja’aro from King Simon’s stories, but he had never heard or seen anything to suggest that this bad-tempered relative would be the one giving the orders. The hierarchy of the Zida’ya had seemed quite clear to Eolair during the Storm King’s War: Likimeya and her husband were the royal couple, and their children, Jiriki and Aditu were prince and princess, or at least next in the line of succession. But either he had been wrong or something had happened to change it.
“You say only our old alliance preserves our lives today, Khendraja’aro,” Eolair said. “If so, we are grateful for your restraint, but I confess I am puzzled. Before you send us away, please tell me what I—or my people—have done to earn such words of scorn.”
“You want to know what you mortals have done?” Khendraja’aro asked. “Lied. Betrayed. Murdered. Is that not enough to deserve those words?”
“Why is he saying that?” Morgan demanded. “That’s not true! Count, what does he mean?”
“I don’t know—” Eolair began.
“You saw Likimeya!” cried Yeja’aro. “You saw the mistress of Year-Dancing drowning in the Long Sleep! Your people did that!”
Aditu shot Yeja’aro a look that seemed to Eolair half-anger, half-pity. “Not all mortals know what all mortals do, S’hue-tsa.”
“They were men of this Seoman Snowlock’s own kingdom!” Yeja’aro turned to Khendraja’aro. “Uncle, you said yourself that mortal words are meaningless, useless—that those creatures do not know anything of truth.”
Morgan stirred and seemed about to reply. Eolair reached out and squeezed his arm—a little harder than he had intended, but the last thing they needed was an angry young prince making things worse.
“Saying so does not make it so, Yeja’aro,” Jiriki said. “And Aditu and I can both promise that although many mortals are unworthy of trust, there are others whose words are as rooted in truth as those of the Zida’ya. Seoman Snowlock and his wife Miriamele are two such mortals.”
“Then tell me,” demanded Khendraja’aro, “what Snowlock and his queen say about their subjects who attacked me, and who nearly killed Likimeya and may yet prove to have caused her death. And what of our messengers? First Sijandi slaughtered, now Tanahaya attacked and poisoned!” The red-haired Sitha suddenly went rigid, like a hawk spotting something vulnerable moving on the ground. “Tanahaya. Where is the scale she carried?”
Jiriki almost looked uncomfortable. “She does not have it with her.” He turned to Eolair. “Did your people find her possessions?”
Eolair shook his head. “I have asked Lord Pasevalles, the one who found Tanahaya and brought her to the castle. He said her horse had vanished, and in her pack they found only some food wrapped in leaves. What is missing?”
“What Protector Khendraja’aro seeks—what we are all curious about—is a mirror small enough to fit in the hand,” said Aditu. “Simon may have told you of these mirrors, which we Zida’ya use to speak to each other over a great distance. Scales of the Greater Worm, they are called, or sometimes just Witnesses.”
“I know tales about such things—in legends my people called it a ‘wormglass’—but I heard nothing of any mirror found with the wounded Sitha,” Eolair said. “But another question is pressing me fiercely. Did you say you sent a previous messenger?”
“Some years ago, by your reckoning,” said Jiriki. “When the attacks upon our folk began, we thought they must be the work of just a few ignorant mortals. But when they continued and grew more violent and yet seemed to be carefully planned, we determined to send an envoy to Simon and Miriamele to ask them if they knew why these things were happening.”
“Were there truly so many attacks on your people?” Eolair was beginning to have a very, very nasty feeling.
“What are they talking about?” Morgan asked in a hoarse whisper. “Are they saying my grandparents started some kind of war?”
“Just let me talk to them, Highness,” said Eolair, quickly and quietly. “I will get answers for us, but the Sithi will not be rushed, especially now.”
“Do I have your permission, Protector Khendraja’aro, to answer Count Eolair’s question?” Jiriki asked. “It might be useful for us to find out what these mortals know, since they are here. But that will mean sharing what we know with them, and it will take some time.”
Khendraja’aro inspected Eolair and Morgan again. His scar-hooded eye made it look as though he doubted everything he heard, but at last he nodded and made a broad gesture with his hand. “Bring them in,” he said. “Give them water and food if they need it. But not overmuch—they will not remain here long.”
? ? ?
Eolair and Morgan were led from the dockside shelter farther into the forest camp, to a structure made entirely from a ring of living trees, which had somehow been coaxed into growing together at the top so that their branches mingled in a single leafy roof. Spiderwebs hung between all of the trunks except the two that served as gateposts, and although it seemed to Eolair that at least a few of the webs should be old or broken, they all appeared new and perfect, with each strand in place. The Sithi in this place seemed more serious than those in the first Little Boat, Eolair thought, as if this were a military camp near the front lines of a battle. He saw no one singing or dancing, and Eolair thought they watched him and Morgan much more closely than the first group of Sithi had.
Or perhaps they are simply less interested in being courteous, he thought.
He and the prince were given fruit and small loaves of bread on broad leaves that served as plates, and bowls of water so cold and lively on the tongue that it almost seemed like strong drink; when Eolair looked he could see that Morgan was enjoying the refreshment far more than he had expected to.
When they were done eating, Jiriki said, “Much has happened since you and I saw each other last, Count Eolair, at the crowning of Miriamele and Seoman. Soon after that, we had to decide whether to abandon Jao é-Tinukai’i, our last home, because it had been discovered by the Hikeda’ya, and we had been attacked there in the year of Ineluki’s war.”
“Ineluki was the Storm King’s true name,” Eolair explained to Morgan. “He was a Sitha once. Before he died.”
“I know all that,” said Morgan.
Eolair was grateful that at least he seemed to be paying attention. Young princes were seldom very accomplished listeners, as he knew from long experience.
“Some years ago,” Jiriki continued, “as we struggled with our own disputes and concerns, we began to hear of attacks on our people in the southwestern part of the Great Forest, not far from our abandoned city of Da’ai Chikiza. This has always been important territory for our people, so when we heard that mortals were responsible—Erkynlanders, by their clothes and weapons, Seoman’s and Miriamele’s own people—we were disturbed, but we had known centuries of ignorance and distrust and even hatred would not evaporate simply because a mortal throne had changed hands, so though we hunted the attackers, we did not blame your king and queen.”
“Which was foolish, as it turned out,” said Khendraja’aro, sipping from a cup made of carved horn trimmed with silver. “As I had warned.”
A swift look, the merest glance, flickered between Jiriki and Aditu before Jiriki continued. “But as years passed and more attacks happened—many of the victims were innocents out gathering necessary plants, or acting the sentry along our forest borders—we knew something was truly wrong.”
“May I ask how mere mortals could have wounded Sithi,” Eolair asked, “— especially sentries that I presume were armed and prepared to fight?”
“They were lured, Count Eolair,” explained Aditu. “Their mortal attackers were not striking out in surprise and a moment’s fear—they were not just angry peasants. In one case our people went to investigate a crowd of mortals felling trees in a part of the forest that, by our agreement with your High Throne, was not for mortal use. But these tree-cutters were merely the bait. Other mortals were waiting in ambush, and when our people came to see what was happening they were attacked by bowmen firing from cover.”
“Elysia, Mother of God!” said Eolair in astonishment. “Someone actually set traps? To try to kill Sithi? How could you think this was anything to do with Simon and Miriamele?”
“Most of our people didn’t,” Jiriki said. “Not at first.”