Water Sleeps

37

D espite her enthusiasm the night before, Sahra had been worried about having Goblin along, playing Sawa's role. The little man was not reliable. He was bound to do something...

She did not give him enough credit. He had not survived so long by doing stupid things in tight places. He was determined to be more completely Sawa than ever I had played the role. He did nothing on his own. Minh Subredil guided him completely. But over his conservative role-playing he laid a glamour of disinterest. Jaul Barundandi and everyone else merely gave the idiot woman a glance and concentrated on Shiki, who appeared particularly attractive this morning. Who carried her flute hung on a thong around her neck. Anyone who tried to use force would suffer a cruel surprise.

The flute was not new but the Ghanghesha that Shiki carried was. Today even Sawa carried a statue of the god. Jaul Barundandi mocked Subredil. "When will you start carrying a Ghanghesha in each hand?" This was after he had been threatened because of Shiki and he was not feeling kindly.

Subredil bent and whispered to her Ghanghesha, something about pardoning Barundandi because at heart he was a good man who needed help finding his anchor within the light. Barundandi heard some of that. It disarmed him for a while.

He turned the madwoman and her companions over to his wife, who had developed an almost proprietary interest lately. Subredil, in particular, made her look good because she got so much work done.

Narita, too, noted the Ghanghesha. "If religious devotion will win you a better life next time around the Wheel, Subredil, you're headed for the priestly class for sure." Then the fat woman frowned. "But didn't you leave your Ghanghesha here yesterday?"

"Ah? Ah! Ah! I did? I thought I lost that one forever. I didn't know what had become of it. Where is it? Where is it?" She had prepared for this, though the Ghanghesha had been left behind intentionally.

"Easy. Easy." Subredil's love affair with her Ghanghesha amused everyone. "We took good care of it."

There was a lot of work scheduled for the day, which was good. It helped pass the time. Nothing else could be done till much later, and even then, luck would have to play a big part. Another dozen Ghangheshas would not have been out of place where the need for luck went.

During the noon break, over kitchen scraps, Subredil's party heard rumors of the Protector's rage over someone having stolen some books from the royal library. She was out there now, investigating personally.

Subredil shot warning looks at her companions. No questions. No worrying about the people they could not possibly help.

Later in the day there were more rumors. The Purohita and several members of the Privy Council, along with bodyguards and hangers-on, had been treated to a wholesale slaughter on the very steps of the Kernmi What, in what sounded like a full-scale military assault supported by heavy sorcery. Reports were vague and confused because everyone but the attackers had been trying to find somewhere safe to hide.

Subredil tried to take that into account but could not control her anger entirely. Kendo Cutter was too violent a man to have been in charge. And too devout a Vehdna. The Gunni were not going to be pleased about bloodshed happening on the very steps of a major temple.

There was much talk about the signs and portents thrown up as cover and diversion while the attackers faded away. There would be no doubt who had been responsible, nor even who was next on the list of the doomed. Any smoke cloud that did not declare "Water Sleeps" thundered "My Brother Unforgiven."

It had been rumored only for a day that the Great General had been summoned to Taglios to deal with the dead who refused to lie down. To the people in the street, it looked like the Company would be waiting.

Sahra was worried. Soulcatcher was sure to abandon the library when she heard about the attack. If she returned to the Palace extremely agitated, Sahra's operation might have to be abandoned because the sorceress would be too alert.

The Radisha stormed through not long after the news began to make the rounds. She was distraught. She headed directly for her Anger Chamber. Sawa looked up from the brasswork she was cleaning, just for an instant, apparently badly troubled. Subredil set her mop aside and went to see what was wrong. No one else paid them any attention.

Not much later, when Jaul Barundandi dropped in to see how the work was going and somehow got into an argument with Narita, Sawa wandered away when no one was looking. No one noticed right away because Sawa almost never did anything to be noticed and today she wore charms reinforcing that.

Shiki drifted closer to her mother. She looked pale and troubled and kept touching her flute. She whispered, "Shouldn't be we going?"

"It isn't time. Place your Ghanghesha." Shiki was supposed to have done that hours ago.

Rumor rushed through, pursued by uglier rumor still. The Protector had returned and she was in a frothing rage. She was visiting her shadows now. It was going to be another night of terror in the streets of Taglios.

The women started talking about the possible wisdom of finishing work before the Protector decided she had to see the Radisha. The Protector would not respect the privacy of the Princess. She made no secret of her contempt for Taglian custom. Even Narita seemed to hold the opinion that it would be best not to be where you could be seen when the Protector was in a mood.

At that point Shiki discovered that her aunt was missing.

"Damn it, Subredil!" Narita fumed. "You promised you'd watch her closer the last time this happened."

"I'm sorry, mistress. I became so frightened. She probably decided to go to the kitchen. That was what she was trying to do when she got lost last time."

Shiki was going already. Not more than a minute later, she called, "I found her, Mother."

When the rest of the women arrived, they found Sawa seated against a wall, brass lamp in her lap, unconscious, with vomit all over her. "Oh, no!" Subredil cried. "Not again." And in a whirlwind of nonsense and apparently vain efforts to get Sawa's attention, she got across the hint of a fear that Sawa might be pregnant after having been abused by one of the Palace staff.

Narita was away in seconds, fuming. Subredil and Shiki were right behind her, supporting Sawa between them, heading for the servants' postern. Nobody noticed that none of the women were carrying their Ghangheshas, not even the one that Subredil had forgotten the day before.

Because of the state Sawa was in, and the state Narita was in, and the imminent explosion of displeasure expected from the Protector, the women managed to draw their pay, then to escape without having to deal with Barundandi's kickback lieutenant. Again.

They were able to lay Sawa inside a covered ox cart not long after they got into the twisty streets downhill from the Palace. Subredil had to caution Shiki repeatedly against celebration.