A staff hammers on our closed door. The voice of the Senior House Steward startles us, for in the normal course of our lives he is far too important to be bothered with mere girls. When he speaks he sounds frantic, like a man about to fall into a vat of poison.
“Open up! Doma Maraya, you and your sisters are demanded at once in the master’s study.”
11
A horrible sick fear worms its way into my heart. I can’t breathe. Father has found out!
Amaya mutters a crude curse under her breath. Even Bettany stares, stunned speechless by the distress in the steward’s tone.
Maraya recovers first. “We shall come at once, Steward Haredas.”
His footsteps lumber unsteadily toward the front of the house, like he is injured and limping.
“What if something happened to Mother and the baby?” A tear trickles down Amaya’s face.
“Hide the basket, Bett!” I snap.
When that is done Maraya leads us down the passage with her rolling walk. We hasten through the family parlor and along the shaded walkway that skirts the formal garden. Taberta kneels at the public altar, a stone basin set on a big block of granite. She clicks through her ill-wishing beads, mouth moving in prayers she can no longer utter aloud. Tears streak her face.
Something has gone terribly wrong.
We walk into the reception room with its floor tiled with a scene from one of the stories told in old Saro: that of the fledgling firebird that fled its nest and found a home in a new land.
The family’s servants huddle here, whispering and weeping.
Fear tastes like bile in my throat.
Polodos stands guard at the closed door to Father’s study. He lets us pass.
Mother sits in Father’s chair, her brow furrowed but her face clear and healthy. Father stands behind her with a hand on her shoulder. As we enter he steps away from her. His clothes are streaked with blood.
He is a strong and good-looking man, hardened by war and yet unmarked except for a few minor scars. That is why the smears of drying blood on his brow shock us girls into mute statues.
The door opens. Polodos enters with Cook, who carries a tray of drink and food.
“I could not eat a thing after seeing that,” says Mother in a trembling voice.
“You will eat,” says Father.
We wait while Cook pours a cup of broth and ladles out fruit and almonds. Father stands like an arrow held to the string, poised at the edge of release. Only when Mother has eaten does he speak.
“Lord Ottonor went into convulsions on the balcony. Although a doctor was in attendance there was nothing she could do. He is dead.”
Cook hands him a cup of his favorite tea, and he drains it in one gulp like a thirsty man who has just crawled out of the Desert of Rocks.
“Is that his blood on your clothes, Father?” I ask. Trying to make sense of it all is the only way to stay calm. “Why was he bleeding?”
“He fell and cut his scalp open. He also coughed up blood.”
Mother says, “He was poisoned.”
Father shakes his head. “No. He was old and ill. He has had convulsions before. It is why he had a doctor in attendance at all times.”
Bettany stiffens. I hiss at her under my breath but she cannot keep her mouth shut no matter what damage it does.
“Now you have no lord sponsor, Father. What is to become of us? You and your pregnant concubine and your four inconvenient daughters and your shameful lack of sons and your household that has clung to the hope that you will gain a higher office even though you never do? What lord will wish to sponsor a man of your birth and age who has no wife and no heir, a mere field captain in the Royal Army with no prospects for advancement whatever his victories?”
“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.”