Court of Fives Read online

  “Bettany,” says Mother in a calm voice, “I cannot approve this disrespectful tone toward the man who gave you life.”

  “Cannot approve my tone? Yet you want those questions answered too, don’t you?”

  “Do not try me, Bettany,” says Father. “You and I have clashed before and we will again, but this is not the time. Whatever you think of me you need to consider right now what this means for all of us.”

  I think Father is a little afraid of Bett, not in a cowardly way but as if he fears the havoc he has unleashed on the world. He slapped me! Yet he speaks to her.

  “Father,” says Amaya in a small voice, “if you can find no lord to sponsor you, then there is no chance I will ever find a husband, is there?”

  “Enough, Amaya,” he says in a tone that starts her sniveling. “A tomb will be opened in the City of the Dead. Lord Ottonor’s corpse is being prepared for his journey to the afterlife. The rituals are being sung, and the priests are braiding his self and his shadow and his name into the husk of his flesh so he will be able to walk to the gods’ country.”

  He stares at his palms. An old white scar cuts across his left hand, memory of a desperate struggle. For as long as I remember he has had that scar. I don’t know how he got it.

  He looks up. “Polodos, you will buy reeds. The women of the house will weave them into mourning mats. We will sleep and sit on these mats only. All other furniture is to be covered and not used until after the funeral. The women’s ribbons and masks and fripperies must be burned. The household will wear mourning shrouds.”

  “Burned!” Amaya fights not to break down.

  I’m already planning where I can hide my gear.

  He goes on. “Once the mourning prayers are begun we will imbibe only water and bread until Lord Ottonor enters his new abode in the City of the Dead. The food we would have eaten will be given to the oracles. Is that understood?”

  Cook is of Patron parentage but she was born and raised in Efea. She looks aghast as she protectively pushes the platters closer to Mother.

  “My lord father, is that necessary?” asks Maraya in her calm way. “It is not commonly the custom here in Efea to follow the harsher laws of the old empire. I can show you the Archival records of funeral feasts observed even in the greater and lesser palaces.…”

  “We must observe mourning with complete propriety, exactly as it was observed in the days of the empire.” Father is a blade of steel, sharp and unmerciful. “This house especially cannot be seen to take a single step wrong, as Bettany has seen fit to remind us. We are not a palace to bend custom to our convenience.”

  Mother curves a hand over her belly. “My lord, of course the household will obey the holy customs of the old empire. Is there no exemption for small children and the aged and infirm, who may suffer if they cannot take a bit of broth or goat’s milk to strengthen their blood?”

  My mouth drops open. Never in my life have I heard Mother question one of Father’s decrees, not in front of us girls.

  “No.” His tone whips us. “The gods protect those who are fully obedient to their decrees. The oracles see all. Everything must be done with the most scrupulous observance.”

  We stand as silent as if we have had our tongues cut out. It is hard to swallow.

  Dried blood flakes off his hand. “I must wash off this blood. Make a pyre for all our clothing. The ashes of our vanity will be placed in Lord Ottonor’s tomb when he is interred after the funeral procession.”

  His gaze holds each of us in turn. Even Bettany says nothing, for once cowed just like the rest of us. When he looks at me I shiver, for I am not sure I know this man with his angry brow. His right eye twitches as if a flash of light has made him want to blink.

  A terrible idea rises up in my heart. This turn of events is not anything he thought would happen, not yet, not now. He fears what Lord Ottonor’s death will bring. But I am not so sure he fears on behalf of his daughters. I am afraid he is not thinking of us at all.

  12

  At dusk we begin burning clothes in a brick hearth hastily built at the open front gate. We drape ourselves in mourning shrouds, wrinkled linen sacks with holes cut for arms and head. We stand all evening at the gate so everyone can see our piety. Ribbons blacken and curl. Ash seeps everywhere.

  Saroese priests sing the proper ritual songs, which drone on and on. An elderly Efean servant called Saffron faints and is taken inside. Half of the household is coughing from the smoke. My eyes stream but not from grief. I am sorry Lord Ottonor is dead but I am not bereft. Father stares straight ahead. Shadows haunt my mother’s gentle eyes. Bettany is silent. Maraya looks as if her carefully tended dreams have been demolished. Poor Amaya sobs as she places the three beautiful masks she just bought onto the flames.

  I hid my Fives gear in a rice basket. Will the oracles punish all of us for my disobedience? Yet I do not go and fetch it out. If I lose the Fives, I will turn into ashes too.

  Long after everyone has stumbled off to catch what sleep they can on mats on the floor, I sit alone in the family’s private courtyard. My heart is gray, burned to cinders. My thoughts chase like adversaries through a maze.

  It is true that Lord Ottonor rode Father’s military victories to a higher place in court. But all lords gain benefit from the achievements of their sponsored men. He did not compel Father to marry a Patron woman of Ottonor’s choosing. He allowed Mother to come to private social gatherings and treated her with tolerant respect. He could have forced Father to get rid of us daughters but he did not. In his own way he accepted us. He allowed us to stay together.

  I bury my face in my hands, trembling. I thought such mean and petty things about him and now I wish I could take them all back.

  A rustle of movement whispers from the kitchen courtyard where the hearths and oven stand. I tiptoe inside. Mother kneels all ungainly beside a mat where the old servant Saffron now rests. She is shading into a delirium, her self and her name coming unmoored from her body. Saffron isn’t her real name anyway; it is just the one Father assigned her when she came into the household.

  Mother glances at me, then slips a tiny leather bottle from the crook of her left elbow and slides the bottle’s tip between the old one’s withered lips. Saffron suckles as might a lamb. Bettany stands in darkness against the wall. As far as I know everyone else is asleep.

  But suddenly lamplight winks, then sprays the kitchen courtyard’s walls with shadows. Father appears. “Is this how I am repaid?” he says with clenched jaw.

  Instead of begging his pardon Mother steadies the bottle at the old woman’s lips. He backhands her so hard that drops of oil splash onto her perfect skin, pale flecks against brown.

  I jolt back a step, heart thudding, a hand clapped over my mouth in shock. Before this night I have never seen him raise a hand to her.

  Her expression tightens as she looks up at him. “How can your Saroese gods demand an old woman suffer for the sake of a man who never knew she existed?”

  “I have allowed you to keep your useless strays at some cost to my career. But now is the crux. If I cannot attract a new lord sponsor in the wake of Ottonor’s death, then what do you suppose will become of her? Or of you?”

  “You fear for your own honor, my lord. Your own ambition. That is what drives this unreasoning mood. It is not like the man I know.”

  “When they see you they laugh at me for my weakness.” He lifts a hand.

  I flinch, thinking he means to hit her again. Bettany leaps forward, yanks the lamp out of Father’s grasp, and throws it onto the hearth. The ceramic bowl shatters, and oil blazes up. Mother kneels with a hand pressed to her cheek.

  “You’re the one who got her pregnant all those times!” Bettany shouts. “You could have let her go but you never did!”

  “Bettany, calm yourself,” says Mother. “The death of Lord Ottonor has upset us all. We will weather this unpleasantness and find peace again.”

  Ashamed at my hesitation, I hasten forward to help her rise
with my arm around her back.

  Father grabs an unlit lamp from the table. He lights it before the glow of the spilled oil fades. When he looks at us with that dark frown, I tremble.

  “Am I?” he says. “Am I the one who got you pregnant?”

  Never before in my entire life have I seen anger pinch Mother’s mouth.

  “Dare you speak so to me, Esladas? Out of your own fear? Had I desired another man I would have left you. Had any of your daughters not been born of your seed I would have honored them by telling them the name of their father. I would not have lied and worn a mask of deceit. Never believe I will accept such insulting words. For it is not just me you insult. It is yourself, and your girls.”

  Fierce Bettany begins to cry but I am numb. My lips are numb. My heart is numb.

  I watch Father for any hint of how the hidden wheels of the undercourt will turn and whether a trap will open beneath our feet. Mother is a rock in my arms. She is not even shaking, but where her taut belly presses against my side I feel a pressure, a push, and then a little kick. Their baby.

  The only sounds are the hiss of the wick and the husky breathing of the old servant. Lamplight bathes Father’s face in a mask of light while we stand in shadow. I imagine he must examine his troops with just this implacable stare before he sends them into a battle from which he knows few will emerge alive.

  Without one more word he walks out of the courtyard, leaving us in darkness.

  Mother takes hold of Bett’s arm. “I hope you have not cut yourself when the lamp shattered.”

  Bettany commences sobbing in gulps. She rarely cries, but when she does, it is floodwaters. “That he should speak to you in that tone!”

  “We enter a perilous time. He knows things may go ill for our household and his military camp, all the people under his command. Beyond all else he does not want to fail us. So he listens to his fears instead of to his wisdom.”

  “You always make excuses for him!” She stomps away into the house. Each thudding footfall makes me wince.

  Mother says, “Help me down, if you will, Jessamy.”

  As I ease her to the ground and kneel beside her, I hear the creak of Saffron’s frail voice.

  “Blessings on you, Honored Lady. May your mercy be rewarded by the five.”

  “Hush, Safarenwe. The old Efean beliefs cannot be spoken of in this house. You must finish the milk.”

  “Mistress, you saved me already from what was worse than death. The passage from this world into the next is no hard journey. Do not harm yourself by helping me.”

  “You are too weak to drink only water and eat only a crust of dry bread. I insist.”

  I remain crouched beside them until Mother sees the bottle emptied. The creamy smell of the milk makes my stomach growl. When Saffron is settled peacefully, I help Mother up.

  “I will sleep with you girls tonight,” she says. “A blessing on you for staying with me, Jessamy.”

  I am ashamed I did not help her sooner, that I stood by while Father hit her.

  As if she can see into my heart, Mother says, “It is the only time he has ever laid an angry hand on me. I would never stay with a man who abused me. Do not think this is how he is.”

  When I speak my voice sounds like a little child’s. “He was never so rigid about the old country Saroese ways before.”

  “This will pass, I promise you. Be patient.”

  He does not seek her out that night. We girls stack our mats so Mother can have a softer resting place and ourselves lie right on the hard floor.

  For the next three days Father is gone all day to stand attendance at Ottonor’s household as the lords of the city pay their respects to the dead man. Our household sits shrouded in the ashes of our finery. Each morning at dawn Cook places a round of fresh bread on the altar while saying a prayer:

  “You who command the wind and the rain and the sun and our destiny, accept this offering of the first food of the day. If this meal be pleasing to you, let the household find favor in your eyes and prosperity in the days to come. Let the Doma be well. Let her merciful heart and her affectionate temper be blessed and sheltered by the mantle of your protection, holy ones.”

  I moisten dry bread in a cup of well water whose metallic taste coats my tongue, but the scraps do not dull the restless uneasiness that dogs me. Bettany and I cling to Mother, wipe down her sweaty face and arms with a cool cloth even though mourning people are not allowed to bathe. Amaya sits listlessly in the shade, grieving for her burned treasures. Maraya reads as if words are food. Old Saffron’s spark fades in the quiet of night and she dies before dawn. Her body is carried out of the house while Mother whispers a prayer in Efean that I have never heard before. But when I ask what it is, she shakes her head and refuses to answer.

  Late at night on the third day Father returns home at last and shuts himself in his study. We four girls walk with Mother to the closed door. He does not answer her query but I hear him pacing. The scuff of his feet on tile is broken by the creak of a chair as he sits down and then stands up again. Haredas speaks to him but he does not reply.

  Polodos guards the door. It is he who, after glancing at us, murmurs to Mother: “Lord Ottonor left massive debts, Doma. His heirs are ruined and his household in disorder.”

  Amaya begins to cry. “How will we eat? Where will we live?”

  “Imagine having to endure Amaya’s bawling over being forced to eat stale bread!” Bettany mutters.

  Maraya pokes her. “Or your gloating over her bawling.”

  Bettany snorts, amused by Maraya’s wit, and Polodos looks our way, shaking his head. They quiet at once. No one wants Father to come out and scold us.

  “Dry your tears, little Amaya,” says Mother, brushing her fingers along Amaya’s cheek. “No doubt your father has some scheme in mind. It will be better in the morning, you’ll see. Let’s go to bed now.”

  When I wake at dawn, all the others are still asleep.

  Mother looks peaceful, her breathing as soothing as the becalmed sea. I love her so much.

  Maraya sleeps with a smile on her face. She’s probably dreaming of dusty old Archives.

  Amaya is curled up as tightly as a bug, her head tucked against her knees. She looks so young, like a girl instead of a budding young woman.

  Bettany sprawls with arms flung out like wings. In sleep all the anger has melted out of her face. I feel I am glimpsing another Bettany, one I’ve not yet been introduced to in the waking world. Among Patrons Bettany would be criticized as too tall, too broad-shouldered, too kinky-haired, too dark. But no one would ever dare call her anything except beautiful, for she is like finest silk tossed in among serviceable linen.

  Every body has five animating souls:

  The vital spark, the breath, which separates the living from the dead.

  The shadow, which hugs us during the day and wanders out on its own at night.

  The self, which is the distinct personality each creature has, that makes one person different from any other.

  The name, which consists of a person’s lineage and the reputation that person builds through deeds and speech.

  The heart, which is the seat of wisdom, the flesh in which we live. The heart binds the five souls into one.

  When Bettany sleeps, her shadow walks elsewhere, and I think it is her shadow that crawls with the anger that makes her lash out. In our shadows sleep our passions and our crookedness and our sly wit and our determination to survive and to eat and to live. I wonder what I look like to the others when I sleep. Where does my shadow wander? Does it ever run the Fives, and win?

  A scrape alerts me. I roll over to see Father standing in the door, studying us. The gray light paints his face with a silver sheen, as if it is his shadow that has crept to the door to stare at us, leaving his body behind. He wears his soldier’s sandals and a loose linen shroud that drapes from his broad shoulders to his knees, leaving his powerful calves bare. For a moment I wonder if it really is his shadow and not him at all. Fo
r a moment I see a stranger who has invaded our house and does not like what he has found within.

  What does he see when he looks at us?

  At length he vanishes.

  Instinct stirs in my bones. Something bad is about to happen.

  I rise and creep after him.

  13

  He has paused in the garden to stand in front of the altar with his head bowed. Movement just out of my sight catches my attention, and I freeze behind a pillar.

  Polodos steps into the garden from the reception room.

  “He is here, my lord,” he says.

  Nothing lies in the altar bowl except crumbs of bread pecked apart by birds during the night. A brightly plumaged bird called a dawn-throat sings its spilling melody, one long fall of plangent notes.

  “Forgive me for what I am about to do,” Father says to the gods. “It is better this way.”

  There is a trap here. I taste it in Father’s bitter tone; I see it in the way he clenches his left hand; I smell a sweet aroma like temptation.

  When he leaves the garden, I sneak after him through the empty reception room and to the door of his study. Father stands with his back to the door in the posture of a soldier awaiting sanction from a superior. Lord Gargaron stands at Father’s desk as if he were head of the household. He wears spotless court clothes, a linen vest over a wrapped ankle-length skirt whose pleats are as sharp as knives. He is looking through Father’s correspondence, examining the pages and then setting them aside.

  “You have a superb record, Captain Esladas. Your victory at Maldine is being compared to the triumph our forces had at Marsh Shore in Oyia ten years ago when they defeated and killed King Elkorios of Saro-Urok. Your quick thinking at Maldine’s harbor salvaged five of Princess Berenise’s ships that would otherwise have fallen into enemy hands along with a number of Efean merchant vessels that were carrying valuable cargo. The princess knows your name, Captain. All of Garon Palace knows your name.”