Diadem from the Stars Read online

  The hall outside was patterned with shifting shadows cast by night candles stuck in iron frames beside doors marching in a steady line down the long corridor. The hall was empty now, but at the far end a pool of butter-yellow lamplight spilled around the corner. Voices bounced down to her like eerie disembodied spirits, echoes garbling the words into snippets of sound. She hesitated. If I keep back in the shadows so they don’t see me …

  Shivering a little at the current of icy air that flowed along the painted tiles, she pattered swiftly down the hall.

  The square outside the Azdar’s door was filled with a milling throng hissing at each other in tense excited whispers, spinning a web of sibilance and secrecy that left her on the outside. Qumri’s sharp tones sounded suddenly above the rest. “… Has to be.…” Mavas’s discontented rumble drowned her out.

  Hastily Aleytys backed farther into the shadows. “Has to be what?” she muttered. “Bitch. It would be her who knows something about that fireball. If she had her way I wouldn’t know alef from bayt.” She leaned forward, tensely curious.

  The purple slab with a fine-line silver dragon incised in its center slammed open and the Azdar himself stood planted solidly in the wide rectangle.

  Aleytys raised higher on her toes and peered past him, curiosity flaring hot in her. As she tottered in the shadows steadying herself with a hand planted on the wall, she could just see a dim shape sitting up in bed. She stifled a giggle. Wonder who he’s got in there tonight. Bet Qumri’s livid. She sniffed and ran her eyes over the bulky figure in the door. Ha! Even stopped to comb his hair and put on a clean nightshirt. Her eyes flicked over him again. Look at the old buzzard suck in his gut.

  Wide mouth curled in a sneer, shaggy eyebrows drawn together into a hideous scowl, he moved his heavy head slowly around like a tars on the hunt.

  A sudden hush. All eyes focused on him.

  Azdar stood impressively silent, milking the scene for all the drama he could squeeze out of it.

  Aleytys sank back on her heels, rebellion an itch crawling under her skin, wanting to yell at them all, “The old bastard’s a fake!” Her shoulders moved restlessly against the wall.

  The tense silence was suddenly broken by Qumri. She took two steps forward and planted herself in front of Azdar. Aleytys held her breath as her heart started thudding again. She couldn’t see Qumri’s face but the set of her head shouted barely suppressed rage.

  “Abru sar, the fireball.” Qumri’s voice was loud and hoarse. She clipped her words viciously short. “Her. What are you going to do about her?” The last word she spit at him like a pit viper spewing its venom.

  “Her?” Aleytys repeated, surprised. She swallowed abruptly, pressing her hand over her mouth, eyes flickering warily over the backs of those closest to her. But no one turned. No one had heard.

  Azdar glared at Qumri until she reluctantly dropped her head. Then his hard yellow-brown eyes narrowed and he roared at the rest of them, “Bunch of spineless mikhmikhha!”

  Once again Aleytys stifled a giggle as the straggling hairs of his bushy moustache fluttered in the blast.

  Slamming his hand against the doorpost, he boomed, “The house stands solid. Ai-Jahann, a lot more solid than the lot of you. Shiver in your skins at ghosts, will you?” He sneered and moved his massive head around again, pinning them with his eyes. “The witch is gone, fools. She won’t come back. Well call mulaqat tomorrow about this thing. Till then, act like grown men instead of whimpering brats. Clear out now. Let a man sleep.” He stalked over, grabbed the edge of the door, and shrugged it closed behind him.

  For a minute the Azdarha fluttered around like a clutch of jittery chickens, their voices clucking in subaudible spasms, a rising and falling murmur that trailed behind Aleytys as she backed up a few steps, then spun around on her toes and fled down the hall. Panting lightly, shaky giggles simmering along with tears beneath her precarious self-control, she slipped past her door and eased it shut.

  The leather lacing creaked loudly as her weight came down on the mattress, startling a shrill titter out of her. She clapped a hand over her mouth and glanced back over her shoulder, but Twanit’s breathing flowed smoothly in and out without skipping a beat, so she stretched her hands out behind her and leaned back, her eyes focusing vaguely on the window’s moon-cast reflection on the smooth surface of the door, a shifting tracery of shadow playing rhythmically across the pale squares.

  A pleasant lassitude spread up through her. With a groaning yawn and a bone-cracking stretch she settled out flat on the bed. “Cackling hens,” she murmured, then closed her eyes, grinning into the darkness. Wonder who that was in Azdar’s bed. Qumri saw, I’m sure she did. Hope I never get that obsessed with any man. Mmm, I better crawl under the quilt before I freeze.

  As she lay trying to work up enough energy to get back on her feet she heard the last door slam and a single pair of feet begin pacing down the long hall. Qumri checking up.

  Aleytys stiffened. “Bitch,” she whispered. She pushed up, hands squeezing the quilt until her fingers ached.

  The footsteps came nearer.

  Mouth twisted in an angry self-mocking grimace, she unclenched her fingers and rubbed her hand across her forehead. I thought she’d have my skin off the last time she beat me.…

  Outside, the footsteps slowed, hesitated.

  Aleytys sat very still.

  A hand pushed strongly from outside. Aleytys heard the faint, dull thud as the door chucked against the stop. Then the footsteps clicked away down the hall.

  “A perfect ending for a perfect day …” With a shaky laugh she twitched the shawl from her shoulders. Sighing, she muttered, “Better try for some sleep. I’ll feel like a calf with scours tomorrow.” She stretched and yawned, but there was a pool of restless energy inside her that made the thought of lying down sit sour on her stomach.

  She shrugged and slipped the shawl back around her shoulders. Lifting the bar and latching it started the blood throbbing through her veins while her breasts fluttered with short rapid breathing. Cautiously she thrust her head out of the narrow opening. The shadows were thickening as the candles burned lower, but the hall was clearly empty. She padded across and groped her way down the curving flight of stairs.

  The wood of the patio door was cold and solid under her trembling fingers. She slipped the latch and eased through, keeping a firm hold on the inner door. In spite of the careful balancing of the hinges that made it possible for her to move that chunk of wood, it had a tendency to slam shut with a boom that shook the whole house.

  Inside the vestibule the glazed tiles burned like ice against the skin of her feet. “Ai-Jahann, I wish they hadn’t put out the steam fires,” she muttered.

  The outer door was secured by iron-banded double bars. Aleytys swung them on their pivot bolts locking them upright. Curling up her toes against the cold she leaned against the door and shoved it open with a flop of the rubber weather stripping. More cold air poured in and she slid hastily outside.

  In the middle of the patio the housetree glistened in the moonlight, its graceful fronds swaying and fluttering in tantalizing whispers. She ran across the short thick grass and pressed her hands against the silken bark while the enticing minty fragrance of the fronds dropped like incense around her.

  She tilted her head and stared at the sky. For a minute she thought she could see a dusty yellow film streaking across from east to west, but the longer she looked, the less certain she became that anything was really there. With a sigh she leaned back against the trunk and let its gentle pulse nip at the back of her head and throb in growing strength up and down her backbone. Purring with pleasure she rubbed against the summer-smooth bark for a long warm minute until reality melted around the edges for her.

  Then she sneezed and the dream crashed around her. Her body was shaking. Her teeth clattered together. Her eyes felt stiff and swollen. She sneezed again, patted the tree affectionately, and hurried back into the house.

  Preoccupied by the
cold that sent shiver after shiver pulsing through her tired body, she didn’t notice the heavy black shadow that loomed at the head of the stairs.

  “Soooo.…” The low venomous hiss snapped head up. She gasped and clutched at the railing while her heart slammed into her ribs. Qumri. Waiting for her.

  She leaned against the balustrade and tried to gather her wits, sick with the age-old terror Qumri had instilled in her and sick with anger at herself for letting the woman cow her so. All those years, she thought. All those years …

  “Custom breaker.” Qumri’s voice was a hate-filled whisper. Aleytys crouched lower over the railing as it whipped at her. “Defiler. Whore-daughter.” The last words were squeezed out in a shrill whine as though rage strangled them in her throat. Aleytys bit her lip and raised her heavy hand.

  “Come up here!”

  Stumbling on numb clumsy feet, she halted up the remaining steps.

  A hard nervous hand came out of the dark and slapped with stinging force against her face, slamming her into the newel post.

  “Stupid animal.” Again and again, underlining the hate-filled syllables, the hand stung her face.

  Aleytys whimpered and tried to cringe away.

  Qumri jerked her onto her feet and slapped her harder, her breath going in and out in harsh squeaks each time she hit.

  Something snapped inside Aleytys. As Qumri’s hand pulled back once more, she wrenched herself free and scrambled away. Just out of arm’s reach she stood up and tossed her head back, anger hot and strong inside her. She laughed.

  Qumri froze, a ludicrous expression of surprise distorting her handsome features.

  “Why, old woman, salkurdeh khatu.…” Aleytys drawled out the words until they became an insult in themselves. “Can’t you get the Azdar to bed you? That why you’re prowling the halls?”

  Qumri shrieked and leaped toward her, fingers curled into claws.

  Hiccuping with hysterical laughter, Aleytys fled down the hall with Qumri squealing behind her. She reached her bedroom and dived through the door just a step ahead of the fury at her heels. Bracing herself, she shoved the door shut in Qumri’s face and dropped the bar into its socket.

  “Ahai!” She turned and flattened her back against the door, feeling limp as a wrung-out dishrag. “I damn sure better keep out of her way tomorrow.”

  Lifting heavy arms, she hung the shawl on its hook, then crawled back into bed. She lay trembling as her body slowly warmed, staring up at the thick blackness. Triumph flared up a minute, then grayed to ash as she realized that nothing was changed. Nothing at all.

  2

  Hesh bulged steel-blue over the eastern edge of the world a handspan north of Horli’s squashed half-circle. Down in the valley the horans grew a second shadow while the dim red light brightened to a clear blue.

  Under the scattered horans the blocky gav dozing in the pastures snorted and humped onto their feet, snuffling in air that had a liveness and a sparkle that sent the blood burning through one’s veins.

  The Raqsidan wound in leaping silver and green between the massive clan houses whose rings of second-floor windows flickered from black to yellow as the tarik roused the sleepers. As the harsh clangs of the tarik’s bell faded down the hall, Aleytys tumbled out of bed, her feet hitting the floor before her eyes opened. She stretched, yawned, scratched her head, and leaned against the wall blinking gritty eyes.

  Something hard touched her foot. The candlestick. She picked it up, lit it, and set it back on the window ledge. The candle was broken in the middle and tilted at a crazy angle dripping wax in a greasy puddle on the stone.

  The door swung open. Twanit sidled through the narrow opening and padded over to her side of the room. Aleytys patted a yawn and leaned back against the wall. “Up before the bell again?”

  Twanit smiled timidly over her shoulder. “I like the morning, Leyta.” She pushed the panel back and set her hairbrush gently in its precise spot on the narrow shelf inside. Humming softly, she lifted a neatly folded ribbon from another shelf and tied her shining curls back with quick deft fingers. “You Know how I hate being crowded and pushed around,” she finished.

  Sliding the panel shut, she pattered to the head of the bed and began stripping the quilts and sheets away. Aleytys sighed and scrubbed her hands hard across her face. “Huh!” she muttered. “Don’t see how you do it. I hate waking.”

  She edged along the wall and slid her own closet open. Carelessly she rummaged through the untidy mess of bottles and wrinkled ties until she rooted out her own hairbrush. With a gaping yawn, she dropped on the naked mattress and began working the knots out of her fine red hair. “Ai-Aschla!” She jerked on the brush. “Ow! I swear I’ll cut it all off.”

  Twanit chuckled as she folded the sheets together. “How many times’ve you said that, Leyta?” Aleytys smiled reluctantly and began working on another knot. “If you’d just braid it like I do,” Twanit went on. She tucked the bundle under her arm and elbowed the door farther open. “Trouble is …” She gave a tinkling giggle and flapped her luxurious eyelashes. “You’re just too vain, that’s all.” As the brush bounced off the door she whisked away down the hall.

  Aleytys stood up and made a face at the door. She wriggled out of the nightgown and rummaged in the closet for a clean abba. As her fingers automatically tied the closings at shoulder, breast, and waist, she looked around the room. “Twanit’d have a fit,” she said, chuckling. She picked up the gown and tossed it into her closet without bothering to fold it. Then she picked up her brush, pulled a handful of red-gold hair from the bristles, and flipped it into the closet. Whistling breathily between her teeth, she slid the panel shut, dropped the wad of hair into the wastebasket, and strolled out into the hall.

  Zavar backed out of a childroom and stood glaring at its invisible occupants. “Hai! You Mavashi! Get out of those beds. Now!” She shoved her tumbled brown hair back from her small harassed face. Shrill hoots of laughter answered her and she ground her teeth. “Oh, you wait!”

  “Vari?”

  “Leyta.” Her face lit up. “Madar bless. Jorchi and the Kur are impossible this morning. Give me a hand a minute, will you?”

  Aleytys grinned. “Sure. I’ll kick their teeth in while you twist a few arms.” She walked briskly to the door and looked in.

  The two boys were perched on their narrow beds, shrieking with laughter, wrapped like worms in woolen cocoons.

  Zavar pressed her lips firmly together and darted back into the room. When she grabbed at him, Jorchi wiggled away, wrapping himself further into the quilts until all she could see of him was a pair of bright mocking eyes topped with a tangled mop of black hair. “Oh, fash!” she groaned.

  As soon as Jorchi’s full attention was on Zavar, Aleytys pounced on him, winding one hand in his curls. She jerked him out of the covers with a practiced flip while he wriggled and howled and swung at her with his small fists.

  “Jorchi!” She shook him lightly. “Quit acting like a one-summer’s baby. Stand there and shut up or I’ll put you over my knee and warm your bottom so you can’t sit from Aabkiss to Zebkiss.”

  He squealed and clawed at her arm, flaring up in sudden childish anger. “Let me go! I’ll tell, I’ll tell.… Bitch … red bitch … not ’sposed to touch us kids.… Get your stinking hands off me!”

  Aleytys flinched and opened her fingers. Feeling sick, she rubbed her hand up and down her side staring dumbly at the contorted red face of the boy.

  Zavar gasped. She bounced off the bed and slapped the boy’s face, her hand splatting loudly in the sudden silence. “Never let me hear you talk like that again, you hear!”

  His eyes dropped and he stood abashed at his own daring and startled by the violent reaction from gentle Zavar.

  “Say you’re sorry.” Zavar took the back of his neck in her hand and shook him. “Hear me?”

  He shuffled his bare feet on the coarse runner.

  “Say it!”

  He shot a quick glance at Aleytys and mumbled
a few words.

  “Louder.”

  “I’m sorry, sabbiyya.” His voice wavered uncertainly.

  “Now.” Zavar straightened. “Get your clothes on.” She glared at Kurrah, who sat openmouthed on the other bed. “You! Get off that. Get into your tunic.” She tapped her foot gently on the floor. “Well?”

  Kurrah scrambled quickly out of the quilts and thrust his head through the neck of the brown hooded tunic.

  When the boys were dressed and shod, Aleytys helped Zavar strip the beds. As she bundled the sheets together, she asked curiously, “Where’s Kahruba? I thought she paired with you this month.”

  Zavar shrugged. Then the corners of her mouth curled up. Her eyes flicked from Kurrah to Jorchi. “Well,” she said temperately, “you know Ruba.”

  Aleytys eyed her for a moment, seething with curiosity. Then she sighed. “Yeah. Shall I get the clean sheets?”

  Zavar chewed on her bottom lip, then she grinned. “No. Ruba can make the beds when she crawls out of her own.” She turned briskly and pushed the boys out of the room. Aleytys snorted, then kicked the sheets out the door and followed.

  Half an hour later they emerged from the majlis for the last time, blown out on the winds of the morning chant to the Madar. Zavar shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair. “Almost time for breakfast. I could eat a gav raw. Come on, Leyta.”

  Aleytys caught her arm and pulled her around. “Come on yourself. Stop teasing, Vari. What is wrong with Ruba?”

  Zavar flicked a cautious glance up and down the hall. Then she faced Aleytys, hands on hips, mouth flashing into an ear-to-ear grin. “Morning sickness.” The grin erupted into a giggle and she leaned back against the wall shaking all over with little spurts of laughter. “Mad enough to set her hair on fire too,” she gasped.

  Giggling helplessly, Aleytys leaned beside her. After a minute she wiped her streaming eyes and pushed the straggling hair out of her face. “That’s making the punishment fit the crime. Any idea who got her that rattled?”