"Estates? Oh, yes," Ghan muttered. "A hundred leagues of cotton and not more than ten books made from it on the whole place. I couldn't leave this, girl."
"I'm sorry. Sorry I asked."
Ghan took up a blotting rag, patted at the sweat standing out on his forehead. He pursed his lips again and then shrugged, composed again. "You ask questions. That's what you do," he said. "That's not a bad thing." He leaned toward her, his voice suddenly low, conspiratorial. "Just be very careful what questions you ask of whom. Very careful, Hezhi. Royal Blood is no protection against Royal Blood." He settled back on his stool.
"Now," he said sternly, index finger extended. "I don't want to see you flirting in here again. This is a library, not a court. Now go home. I want to lock up, go to my rooms, and pour a glass of wine."
A few days later, she started bleeding again. She had cramps beforehand, and the experience was generally unpleasant, but the fever and sickness did not return. She was also depressed; Qey informed her that this was normal, but that didn't mean she had to like it. She also knew that her depression was not so simple as Qey might think. The return of her bleeding brought all of the questions she had—which now seemed so close to being answered—back to mock her, to frighten her. Her most terrible fear was that the priests would somehow know and return to examine her again. Though she still did not actually understand what they were trying to determine, a persistent logic—one that dated to D'en's disappearance—argued that she was in danger each time the priests examined her. She thought, now and then, about questioning someone who was not a servant, who might not have been Forbidden. Her sister, for instance, or her mother. Unfortunately, that seemed too dangerous, both to herself and to whomever she spoke with. Instead, she just thought a lot—and that depressed her. Once she even found herself standing on the roof of the Great Hall, contemplating the flagstones far below, as she had when she was younger. The temptation to jump was not very great, though she remembered that it once had been. It seemed like a long time since thoughts of suicide had crowded about in her head. Once they had seemed very real, insistent. But since her quest for D'en began, she rarely had time to indulge herself in such moods. For nearly three years she had devoted almost every waking moment to her inquiry, and perhaps that had saved her. It felt almost good now to stare down at the tiny people below, to think of a short, hurried flight to join them, of oblivion and peace. Nostalgic, indulgent, a waste of time, yet somehow satisfying. She did not jump, of course, and even Tsem—whom she knew was somewhere near, despite her halfhearted attempt to escape him for a moment—even Tsem did not seriously believe she would kill herself. It was just a game, a fantasy she had outgrown.
But still an option, she reminded herself. An alternative to D'en's fate, should it prove to be her own and as terrible as she imagined it. Rather fly from the roof than suffer passively whatever the priests might consign her to.
Tsem began going home a bit ahead of her, to make sure that the priests were not waiting for her again. It became their standard practice, her in the shadows of an abandoned hall, Tsem looking in and then coming back out to stretch if things inside were normal. It made her feel a bit better; at least she could decide whether she would submit to the demeaning, disgusting ritual again. She also began preparing for another trip beneath the palace. She squirreled away a bit of rope, made sure the lantern had oil in, got Tsem to find her some "suitable" clothes. Nothing he brought back satisfied until he returned with a little boy's work clothes from the docks: long pants spotted and gummed with tar and a matching shirt. They fit well enough, they were easy to move in, and they would protect her from abrasions and so forth. Nothing worn by the nobility would do that, since men and women both tended to wear skirts, kilts, or gowns. Hezhi would never have even thought of pants—very odd clothing, twin tubes made to cover the legs loosely—had it not been for Yen. Eager to know more about her gift, she had checked the index under "Mang" and found a small but fairly thorough treatise on them. They wore these "pants" because they were better suited to life in the saddle than anything that exposed the leg. Indeed, the word in Nholish for "pants" had been borrowed from Mang, she discovered.
She tried the clothes on at night, after Qey was asleep. Bad enough that she had involved Tsem in her madness, she would not have Qey know of it. They felt very odd on, snug in places clothing should not be snug. She tried to imagine herself astride a horse, the same wild expression on her face that the little horsewoman bore. She ended by giggling at herself, doffing the clothes and hiding them beneath her mattress, and going to sleep.
She dreamed, of course, the same dreams of forest. But in this one, for the first time, she saw a man. He was very strange in appearance, pale as linen, his hair a peculiar, impossible shade of brown. His eyes were stranger yet, gray, like the River in very early morning. She wondered if he was some sort of River-man, filled up with water. Her feeling that she had done something wrong redoubled, and for an instant, in her dream, she was standing in the Leng Hall, drinking the sacred water from the fountain, wishing for some hero to come and save her…
"I was sick," she found herself explaining to someone. "I didn't mean it."
"Well," a voice answered. "Now he is awake." And then she was, too, sweating in her bedclothes. It took her a long while to get back to sleep.
The next morning she rose, cross. She spoke barely a word to Qey or Tsem, set out for the library more than a little later than she wanted to. It was Wezh's misfortune that he chose that morning to meet her outside of the archive hall.
She clenched her teeth when she saw him, leaning against the wall, his lips moving.
"Probably reminding himself to breathe," she muttered to Tsem.
"The princess isn't feeling very nice this morning," Tsem observed from the corner of his mouth.
Hezhi tried to ignore Wezh, but he actually interposed himself, grinning his vacuous little grin.
"Good morning, Princess," he remarked brightly. "You look radiant this morning."
"Well, so do you," Hezhi answered, surveying his jaunty red hat, felted orange vest, and flower-stippled kilt. "Positively lovely."
"Thank you," he said, pretending to wave her compliment off. "I wonder if I could speak with you for just a moment. Ah, alone," he finished, eyeing Tsem significantly.
Hezhi sighed. "Could you give us a moment, Tsem?"
The half Giant shrugged his massive shoulders and moved off down the hall a short distance.
"My father—" Wezh began, stopped to dab his lips with a kerchief. "My father asked me to invite you to our rooms for dinner this evening," he said.
Hezhi blinked at him. "I'm afraid I can't do that," she replied, trying to be polite.
"Oh," Wezh said, a little perplexed frown on his face. "My man went to see your nurse—what's her name, Hay?—anyway, she said you should be free."
Hezhi trembled with sudden fury. This idiot had sent someone to talk to Qey? He had conspired to see her? She was suddenly sick to death of people arranging her life, planning it, plotting about it. It was as if something broke loose inside her, something red and hot scrambling up her from her gut and into her tongue.
"Darken your mouth!" she hissed. "Leave me alone, do you hear? Do you hear?" She felt a sort of shudder run along her bones, and though her clenched fists never left her sides, she had a sudden dizzying sensation that felt almost as if she had reached out and slapped the little fool. The most startling thing was that Wezh reacted exactly as if he had been slapped. He reeled into the wall, his eyes suddenly glazed, unfocused. Spit drooled down his chin.
"Leave me alone!" she repeated. Wezh sagged against the plas-tered stone, almost fell, and then suddenly ran, unsteadily at first but then with great enthusiasm. In an instant he was out of sight.
Hezhi stood there, astonished. Her body seemed to hum, to vibrate for just a bit longer, and then it was quiet, normal. But she had just done something, she knew. She had done something to Wezh, something more than simply yell at him.
She caught a motion from the corner of her eye and half turned. Tsem was goggling at her, and so was Yen, who must have just come around the corner. Yen averted his staring eyes, then looked back at her.
"What did you say to him?" he asked.
"I…" Hezhi looked back up the corridor, the way Wezh had run. "I guess it was the way I said it," she concluded.
X
The Heart of Water
Hezhi nudged Tsem with her toe; somewhere outside in the night a peacock called, half threat, half plaintive complaint.
"Tsem," she hissed. "I'm going."
The dark bulk rolled over, and large, sleepy eyes caught a ray of moonlight. "I thought we were done with this fumbling around in the darkness, Princess," he grumbled.
"Quiet. I don't want to wake Qey."
"I wish you could extend me the same courtesy," Tsem groused further. He rose, mountainous in the dark.
"I have everything right here," she assured him. "Just get dressed."
Tsem nodded and groped around a bit behind his bed. She couldn't make him out clearly, but the rustle of fabric suggested that he was complying with her command. When he stood up, she handed him the bundle in her hands. "Keep that upright," she warned. "The lantern is in there."
Tsem didn't answer, but shuffled quietly toward the door.
Once outside, he unpacked the lantern and lit it; it would be madness to try to trace even these familiar halls in total darkness. There were no fancy skylights or stained glass here in the old wing. The night sky entered this part of the palace only through the roofless courtyards, and the illumination of star- and moonlight did not diffuse far into the plastered halls.
Tsem's face appeared suddenly in the lamplight, thickened with shadows into the bust of some ancient monster. The monster grimaced and bared its teeth, and it took an instant or two for Hezhi to recognize the expression as a smile.
"Well, don't you look fine,'" Tsem whispered, squinting at her.
"I thought I would change before we went," she answered back.
Tsem nodded. "Well, you wanted to look like a boat caulker, and so you do."