“Kaeska is a very clever woman but her power will end with the birth of Mahli’s child. Accordingly, it is entirely possible that she will make some attempt to injure Mahli or the baby.”
I had no trouble believing that; for all their endless courteous dances around each other, I had already seen ample evidence of Aldabreshin ruthlessness. The breeze coming through the open windows still carried a faint hint of ash, carried from a neighboring domain where an island struck by one of the foul pestilences peculiar to the Archipelago had been quite deliberately burned clear down to the black earth, utterly destroying homes, plants, animals and inhabitants to contain the disease.
Laio scowled as she briskly lathered her face. “You are to remain vigilant at all times. We will dine as a family tonight, so you are not to shame me in the slightest fashion. You will speak only in Aldabreshin and only when directly addressed. You will not draw attention to yourself, no matter what is said.”
The soap bubbles rather spoiled the effect of Laio’s stern look, but as I had no desire to feel her cane switch on my back again I stifled my desire to laugh.
“What dress will you wear?” I could manage that much in passable Aldabreshin by now, as well as a few other useful phrases, but it looked as if I was going to spend the evening largely silent. That did not bother me; I may still have been having trouble speaking the language, even though it had proved far simpler to learn than I had feared, but I was finding I could understand more and more, something I took pains to conceal from everyone around me. What I really wanted was to overhear something that would get me out of this compound, past the guards and down to the harbor on my own. I was increasingly certain that waiting for any wizard to rescue me was a waste of time.
Laio paused as she soaped her body vigorously. “The red and gold. Do you agree?”
I thought for a moment. “I’d have said the cream and gold, especially if Mahli’s going to be wearing yellow. Gar has that new red gown, remember?”
Laio nodded. “That should remind Kaeska that Mahli is much supported here.” She tilted her head back and tipped a bowl of cold water over her face. She shuddered, glistening in a very distracting manner as the water curled away down the drain in the sloping floor.
I left her to her ablutions and fetched the dress in question, adding a choice of pearl-studded ornaments of yellow gold for ankles, wrists, neck, waist and hair. I was getting positively casual about handling enough wealth to buy up half of Zyoutessela by now. Laio had cases of the stuff and, quite evidently, no real idea of just what she owned. I could quite easily have purloined a ring, an ear-stud or two, a fine chain perhaps, jewels that would have paid my passage clean across the Old Empire at home. Here they wouldn’t get me past the first gates of the compound, since no one apart from the nobility had any understanding of the value of such things. The irony could have been quite amusing, if it hadn’t been so galling. Her jewel case was an odd mixture too; some pieces of workmanship so fine an Emperor would have coveted them, some plain pieces with huge gems simply polished in their natural shape, for all the world looking like oddly colored pebbles rather than wealth enough to buy every slave in Relshaz.
“My hair will suffice. Do my face,” commanded Laio, settling the folds of her draperies to her satisfaction.
I found the paints and looked for a judicious choice of colors. Whatever else I’d imagined I might learn from an Aldabreshi swordsman like Sezarre, it hadn’t included mixing cosmetics. However, the duties of an Aldabreshi lady’s body slave were proving to be a most peculiar mixture of guard, personal dresser, spy and footman. Luckily, before my father and I had agreed that masonry wasn’t for me, I’d served sufficient apprenticeship to give me a good eye and a steady hand. It could have been worse; the indigo Gar used to tint her hair left Grival with permanently blue nails, from what I had seen.
A brazen scream of horns came from the harbor, startling me so much that I nearly stabbed Laio in the cheek with a silver-laden brush.
She spat something that just had to be an obscenity. “That’s Kaeska’s ship; she’s early of course. Hurry up! Wash your face as well, I won’t have you looking like that!”
I complied, and almost before I was finished Laio was on her feet and out of the door. I followed, trying to ease the screaming pain in my shoulder muscles and wondering when I might have a chance for a cooling wash myself. The best I could do was to tighten my belt, to try and settle as much of the weight of the armor on my hips as I could.
“I don’t think we need hurry, my dear.”
As we emerged from the main door of the keep, we found Shek Kul waiting on the broad steps of polished black stone, his long beard lustrous with oil, looking the complete masquerade barbarian in loose trousers and overtunic of lavishly embroidered white silk studded with gems, still more jewels on his wrists and fingers. His hair was scraped back off his face with more oil, braided and laced with gold chains, the first time I had seen it done so. A gold mounted fly whisk of iridescent feathers added the final touch to his air of ease.
“We will wait for Mahli,” he smiled at Laio, taking her hand with a fond squeeze.
“Of course,” she beamed up at him and I wondered if I would be taking my cotton-stuffed pallet out into the corridor again that night, rather than sleeping at the foot of Laio’s bed like a house dog as I had been forced to become accustomed.
“Trust Kaeska to be early!” Mahli came cautiously down the steps, leaning heavily on Grival’s arm.
Sezarre and I were seeing less and less of him these days; with Mahli scant days away from child-bed, he was hovering around her like an old bitch with one pup. Personally, I was starting to wonder about his fondness for her but was careful to keep my speculations to myself.
“Let us go and greet our wife,” commanded Shek Kul, his steps crunching down the pebble path that wound through the vivid and richly scented blooms filling the gardens. Laio took Mahli’s arm and Grival fell in beside me. I heard the door behind us swing open, but as I went to turn my head to look Grival shot me a forbidding frown. I kept my eyes ahead and my face carefully impassive as Gar hurried past us in a flurry of scarlet silk and Sezarre took his place at my sword hand, the three of us marching in step. I’d been relieved to find that outside the palace buildings everyone wore open leather sandals, but even though my feet were toughening up I could still feel every pebble through the thin soles.
I schooled my expression as we approached the gates of the compound, but could not help a quiver of anticipation deep in my belly. We’d arrived at night and gone straight to the palace, so there had been no chance for me to see the harbor, to get some idea of what boats were available, and assess how closely things were guarded or patrolled.
What I saw now did not encourage me. A rough lane snaked down to the broad curve of the bay, clusters of single-roomed houses on either side, broad shutters open to show people washing, cooking, weaving, spinning, going about their daily lives unconcerned at observation from all sides. At the water’s edge a broad, square building of harsh, gray stone stood sternly above the tide line, watchmen on its roof walk, windows no more than slits for arrows, the only double door a massive barrier of wood, studs and black iron. It was a fair wager that it was a hollow square, like so many of the palace buildings, built for defense on the outside, all amenities facing inward. The great double doors of black, iron-bound wood stood open, meek Islanders carrying in loads deposited on the dark sand of the beach by the flotilla of little boats that were ferrying in considerable amounts of cargo from the galleys anchored in the center of the bay. Even if I had a chance to steal one of those skiffs, I wouldn’t want to risk it in anything more than a stiff breeze, with its shallow draft and triangular, coastal sail. I sighed inwardly. Was I ever going to find a workable plan of escape?