The Emperors Knife - By Mazarkis Williams Page 0,120

of the men carried Hadassi. Hadassi of the golden skin. Mesema’s feet slid in her warm blood. The leader held Mesema’s elbow so tightly she felt he would crush it. The soldiers marched all the women down the grand stairs, where it smelled of roses and the banisters gleamed with gold. They turned into a corridor, then another, and another, the corridors all blurring into one. Mesema’s stomach twisted in fear. She stumbled, but the soldiers’ leader kept her upright.

Arigu waited in an orange room, sitting behind a dark wooden table scattered with parchment and writing implements. She remembered those eyes, hard and all-seeing, and the way his mouth twisted as if he were tasting something unpleasant. He looked at the arrayed women, his eyes lingering over Hadassi’s limp form and then Mesema and her bloody clothes. His eyes fell on the torn cushion. Then his gaze returned to the commander.

“There were four wives, Rom, not three plus a horsegirl.”

“That one tried to run.” The leader gestured towards Hadassi. “We wanted them alive.”

“Regrets, sir.”

“I hope for your sake the emperor does not make an issue of it.” “Thank you, sir.”

Mesema puzzled over Arigu’s words. The emperor? Did he speak of Beyon? “As for young Mesema…’

She met Arigu’s eyes. Unlike these other men, Arigu might wonder what

she held in her pillow. He would wonder if she knew anything, if she would try to spoil his schemes. She kept perfectly still.

But Arigu’s mind was apparently on other matters.

She took a breath. Mesema, once the centrepiece of all Arigu’s ambitions, no longer mattered. He must believe the prince dead, and had other plans afoot. I’m invisible to him now. She felt free. “Her countryman will deal with her,” Arigu said.

The soldiers pulled Mesema forwards and she tripped as the light-eyed soldier opened a door at the back of the room. She tried to turn and look at Beyon’s wives, but the soldiers held her too tightly. They traversed another, narrower, corridor that smelled of wet shoes and leather, opened a wooden door and pushed her through.

A lantern illuminated another wooden table, smaller and cleaner than Arigu’s. On it lay a single parchment, half-covered in writing. A cold wind blew through a window in the facing wall, moving the parchment like a leaf, but a round red stone kept it from flying away. She knew the stone. She could kiss that stone. Its owner leaned out of the window, his face tilted towards the moon. As the soldiers pushed Mesema forwards he turned, surprise in his eyes.

She ran, dropping her pillow, crying, “Banreh!”

He took her in his arms, his golden hair falling softly against her cheek, and she breathed him in. The soldiers left the room, and closed the door behind them.

“What happened to you?” He drew back and looked at her gown.

“They came to the women’s wing and killed one of the emperor’s wives.” Her voice sounded weak to her when she said it out loud. “The blood went all over me.”

He frowned. “I heard the wives were to be taken, but I never dreamed you’d be involved.”

He knew? She let go of him and wrapped her arms around herself instead. “Banreh, how did you get here?”

“Don’t you remember? Arigu said that if anything went wrong I should meet his man by the river. And I did.”

“But the emperor sent you back with my gifts—”

“Mesema—” The same old tone now, scolding and patient both at once. “—he’s not the emperor any more. He had the marks—you know what that means. An heir was found, a new emperor, one who will work with us.” Banreh pulled two stools over and eased onto one, wincing as he stretched out his bad leg.

“Us?”

“The Felting.”

Mesema settled onto the other stool, folding her hands together in a formal pose. Careful, now.

Banreh put a finger against her cheek. “Listen—what worries you? Both brothers are dead, so there is to be no royal marriage. You can go home.”

Home. It came back to her in a rush: the fields, the scent of wet wool, the soft voices of the women at their craft; the way she knew what people meant when they looked at her. She could go back across the desert and leave the pattern behind, leave Sarmin on his sickbed, leave Beyon. She would return to her life, work the wool, marry a plainsman. Maybe her father would even let her marry Banreh.

If only it could happen that way… If she fled, the pattern would follow her. It would