Misery's Child (The Cadian Chronicles) Read online

  If she became the Chosen, not even Yanna would go with her into the palace. Her job done, Yanna would be reassigned to some other consecratia, mayhaps at the farthest ends of the realm. The thought of being so alone sent a shiver along her spine.

  It would do no good to dwell on these things. The least she could do was make Edlin feel better. “All the other cadia will probably be insufferably haughty. I bet they won’t laugh at my awful jokes, either.”

  “And I shall be so lonely I will have to marry Shemus and his enormous nose, just for company.”

  “And have babies with enormous noses, too.”

  Even as the bed springs squeaked with their silent laughter, Lillitha thought she had never been so miserable in her life.

  Chapter 9: The Road to Shamonoza

  Excerpt from a letter of Cadia-techa Yannamarie to Cadia-dedre Osane:

  My dear friend, you are doubtless correct that my judgment in the matter is colored by my affection for the girl, but she is truly remarkable. A quick student who applies herself above and beyond what I expect from her, she has a sweet and loving nature and an innate eagerness to please. My only reservation is that she still harbors such anxiety about the Choosing. My eyes and ears tell me she is devoted to her duty and comes to us with a willing heart, but there is something else in her, some fragility that touches my maternal instincts and keeps me awake long into the night worrying for her. Don’t you dare laugh at me, Osane! I know I sound just like all those pampering mothers who are loath to have their precious daughters leave the nest. It was you, remember, who suggested I become a techa. What was it you told me? That I had the “natural disposition of a petty tyrant unburdened by the sentimentality of most women” so that I would make the perfect teacher for consecratia. Indeed!

  Shamonoza, the sacred city of the Shallan in the province of Shallanie, was located on the Great River in the heart of the Realm. At best, Rowle said, it would take a fortnight to travel the distance with such a motley collection of persons and conveyances.

  Paul, beside himself with excitement and trying vainly not to show it, rode a timid sway-backed mare alongside his father. He carried the fading banner of Kirrisian house, red with three gold circles. Behind him, Ersala and Marta rode in a somewhat shaky dray along with the trunks containing clothes and provisions.

  Marta had been the one to suggest repainting the dray, hoping to camouflage its flaws. To her dismay, it still looked like a wreck of splinters and loose boards, albeit a freshly painted one. She didn’t know what was worse: sitting beside her mother day in and day out or swallowing the great mouthfuls of dust kicked up by the two plow mules that pulled the dray. The sun seemed to grow hotter with every parsec while perspiration puddled under her breasts and in her armpits.

  “Marta, for Oman’s sake,” her mother sighed, “hold that parasol steady if you insist on carrying such a ridiculous thing. That’s the third time you’ve nearly taken my eye out with it.”

  Marta cast a glance backward at the two-wheeled litter in which Lillitha and Yannamarie rode in shady comfort. Her father had traded three volumes of the Histories and two sheep to Toliver in the village for the refurbished litter, which had once belonged to Tomack’s mother. (Mistress Danaus had traded it in for a newer model with springs that rode with greater comfort.) The polished fen wood gleamed in the sunlight. The carved fish along the framework seem to be swimming in a deep, dark sea. The doors had gold-gilded handles and the windows were screened with muslin finer than any dress Marta’d ever owned. The seat cushions were plump, upholstered in real, if faded, velvet.

  It would do no good to sigh over the injustice. Her mother would only tell her that tradition said Lillitha must travel in closed litter. At fifteen, Marta was finally resigned to the fact that no one could argue with Oman. Or her mother.

  “By the beard, ‘tis shamed I am to see this rag-tag bunch tramping along beside us,” Rowle said, drawing his horse closer and leaning down to his wife’s ear. “The Shallanie will laugh us out of the city.”

  “Hush, husband.” Ersala glanced over at the straggling line of soldiers marching on either side of them. “They can’t help it that they’re young.”

  “Aye, wife. Tis true. They’re good boys, just a little green.”

  “They’re babies, father.” Marta squinted into the sun and felt very much grownup to be a party to an adult conversation between her parents. “You should have sent them back home and made their older brothers come instead.”

  “Ah, calla Marta!” Rowle laughed, his good humor quickly restored. “But I can hardly blame them. Our people have too much work in the field to part with the older sons just for the sake of my pride. Besides, ‘tis all for show anyhow.”

  Ersala’s sharp glance at her husband did not escape Marta.

  For almost a season now, strange images had been invading Marta’s head. At first it frightened her; it was almost as if she were dreaming wide awake. They were fragments that made no sense and she was afraid to tell anyone for fear they’d think her mad. Then one day Tomack had been talking about a shipment that had come into the docks. Suddenly she saw the broken bags of grana and the bloated rats that had gnawed through the sacks, too enormous with their gluttony to move even as Tomack stomped on them.

  “You liked the way their bones crunched, didn’t you?” she had asked, amazed and terrified at once. She wasn’t mad. She was tadomani. “The rats. You crushed the rats—”

  “Who told you that?” Tomack had demanded his voice thin and shrill.

  “Just a lucky guess,” she’d smiled quickly. “See how well I know you, my love?”

  Now her mother’s thoughts were in her head, confused images of shadows and someone running. An old man, covered in blood.... And then stakes. She did not understand the images, but there was no mistaking the emotion. Her mother was uneasy, maybe even afraid.

  Even without peeking at her mother’s thoughts, Marta knew her father lied when he said the soldiers were all for show. That was mostly true, but not completely. The few bandits in Omani were a polite breed, only interested in coin or valuables. It was almost unheard of for an Omani bandit to injure his victims. Rowle had been waylaid by such a rogue many summers ago; the vidor relished telling the story of how the man had been so good-humored that they supped together at the campfire before the robber went on his merry way with all Rowle’s coin in his pockets.

  But the pilgrimage would pass through Gezana and Bethosa, situated along the borders of Tor Abat. Tor renegades and robbers were an entirely different breed. They were the stuff of calla mundies, sweeping down out of the foothills to prey on Omani and Tor alike on either side of the mountains. Huge men, screaming and whooping on thundering horses, that stole, pillaged and ransacked. Sometimes they roved deeper into Omani lands, terrorizing whole villages before the Border Army drove them back.

  The Torian bandits were interested in coin and loot, yes; but they seemed just as interested in destroying what they could not steal. Houses, fields, fences—vandalism large and small. Burn a house here, kill a few sheep there, and perhaps cut the ear off an old man just for sport. They always slunk away when challenged in actual combat.

  Worse yet, Tors were slave-traders. The bandits frequently kidnapped children, young boys and women to sell in the Gra-Marte market, where an Omani slave brought great profit for their rarity.

  Pilgrims to Shamonoza were favorite targets because of the costly gifts many carried for the Shallan and Shallana Breda. Marta thought much of the danger could be avoided entirely if only the Omani would alter their pilgrimage to steer clear of the border territories. She said as much to her mother, who only shook her head and sighed.

  “Child, the purpose of the pilgrimage is not just to get to Shamonoza. Have your lessons with Yannamarie taught you nothing?”

  Marta frowned and tipped her nose into the air.

  “I know, I know,” she said in a bored tone. “We have to stop at every dismal rut in the road to pray and pour wine over the ro
cks in Belah’s tribute. As if Belah would care. I suppose it’s all the same to him if we all get our throat’s slit while mumbling our prayers.”

  She supposed she must have thoroughly shocked her mother, for the woman’s lips pursed as she flicked the reins. Marta laughed.

  “Oh, muma! Aren’t you even going to lecture me on tradition? Blasphemy? Anything at all?”

  “It may come as a great surprise to you, Marta, but I do not enjoy speaking just for the love of my own voice. You are my daughter and as such I love you. But I don’t think I like you very much, Mother Leah forgive me.”

  “That’s the first grown-up thing you’ve ever said to me, muma!” Marta threw an arm around a surprised Ersala and kissed her on the cheek.

  “And that pleases you?” The older woman regarded Marta with sidelong eyes, then had to laugh. She shook her head. “You are the strangest child.”

  “Thank you,” Marta said, beaming. Along the road to Shamonoza, she would lay a seed in her mother’s mind about Tomack, who rode somewhere in the dust behind them.

  ***

  Danaus and his entourage traveled a discreet distance behind the noble family. His wife and children, except for Tomack, he’d left at home. He was not of noble birth, so no tradition forced him to this pilgrimage. He came rather to cultivate and enhance his own status as the most important merchant of Kirrisian.

  The festival was also a good time to introduce his son to the other prominent tradesmen in attendance. Privately, he thought Tomack a bit of a fool, but the boy was his eldest son. Perhaps the experience and his own close instruction would help. He had ignored the boy’s education for too long.

  His biggest dilemma at the moment was how to make the visit he planned to Abshira, the most sought after bellinta in Shallanie. She was not the only whore who dared to run a pleasure house in the sacred city itself, but she was the most beautiful and most desired. She claimed the chancellor among her suitors, but Danaus wasn’t sure he believed that. Would a man in such a high position as the chancellor visit a bellinta?

  Sometimes he thought the Tors had the right idea. They didn’t bother sneaking around darkened alleys; no, in Pera Tek, the Torian capital, there was an entire district devoted to pleasure where a man could go in broad daylight. A Torian man could take as many consorts as he could support and no one thought anything of it. On the contrary, the more concubines a Torian had the higher his status in the community.

  Perhaps he would just take Tomack along. Danaus was well aware of his son’s whoring in Jennymeade. It was unlikely that Tomack would disapprove or carry tales home to his mother. And the girls Tomack had bedded! Peasants, all of them. Coarse maids with rough hands and dirty hair. There was more than one kind of experience a young man of his position required. One of Abshira’s girls could certainly provide it.

  He glanced in satisfaction at the twenty hearty young men in blue and gold tunics who marched sharply in two columns alongside him. His troops were the best professional soldiers gold could buy. After them came the wagons: one, filled with tribute for the Shallana, whomever she might be; the second, filled with silks and jewelry he planned to trade along the way; and the last two burdened with his own tents and provisions.

  The amount of the shallana’s tribute was a delicate matter. He had spent days brooding over the selection, trying to find the right balance between his own parsimony and the desire to be admired for extravagant largess. The tribute was voluntary and its value was supposed to be of no consequence, but Danaus knew that powerful men in Shamonoza would judge him by it. Six summers past, Weodjic of Gezana had caused quite a stir with his tribute: a dozen of his finest horses, an entire chest filled with gold coin and a stunning collection of silver goblets emblazoned with Belah’s crest.

  It galled him to choke on Rowle’s dust. As vidor, Rowle’s place was at the head of the pilgrimage. The vidor’s troops had no uniforms and his entourage included no servants, not even the ugly old woman Tesla. Perhaps he would arrange an audience with Rowle and test the waters for his proposal. The important thing was not to appear too eager for the joining. He must negotiate as if doing the vidor a favor. If all went well, one day his grandson would lead the Kirrisian procession as vidor. It troubled Danaus little that Rowle’s own whelp stood between him and his plans. Such things could be arranged, could they not?

  By the end of the second day, other groups joined the Kirrisian procession. King Tullus and his son Scearce came under the emerald and yellow banners of Jeptalla, having already been on the road for three days. They brought only one manservant, a well-loaded mule and a single wagon with them. Everyone knew Tullus was quite rich; he did not need to flaunt it. Danaus stared at the wagon and wondered what Tullus’ tribute contained.

  The vidor and vidoress of Gezana more than made up for the Jeptallans’ economy. Weodjic and Leodric’s troupe swelled the pilgrimage with some eighty bodies, including eleven children, twenty-two servants and a trio of story-telling jugglers engaged solely to entertain the children. The family occupied seven closed coaches; even their servants rode, in a number of open carriages and wagons fitted with silken canopies. The vidor was famous for the horses he bred and his troops were all mounted on fine, sleek animals. In the chaos of their party was another closed litter, which carried Iafrewn, the eldest daughter. She, too, was consecratia.

  The pilgrims were by no means limited to the noble houses. All Omani made the pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime; many that could afford it went to every festival. Wealthy merchants like Danaus never let a pilgrimage go by. Couples seeking the blessing of the Shallan on their joining made the journey, as did the ailing to seek the knowledge of the most experienced cadia-apothecas.

  By the end of the fourth day, the road was thick with wagons, bodies, mules and horses for nearly a quarter parsec. Formalities of procession blurred as people fell into companionable groups exchanging news and gossip.

  They began moving each sunrise and only stopped when an oblong stone appeared at the roadside. The stones were monuments to Belah, marking battlefields and campsites of the War for Independence.

  Whenever the pilgrimage stopped, Lendenican, the blue-robed cadia-techa attached to the House of Gezana, stepped down from her litter. She then motioned imperiously to Yannamarie, who had to remind herself that obedience was a virtue. Lendenican was at least twenty-five summers Yanna’s senior. Yanna, unaccustomed to the presence of other cadia after all these summers in Kirrisian House, found her tedious. Yanna fancied she could smell the woman’s moldering pride wavering on the summer wind, like the scent of something long ago left to rot in a forgotten trunk.

  The two cadia escorted their charges to the stone. First Iafrewn, then Lillitha, knelt to kiss the gritty words inscribed there. Lendenican’s eyes rolled every time Iafrewn stumbled on the hem of her robes. As the girls arose and stepped aside, eyes down and hands clasped over their bellies, Lendenican motioned for the nobles to come forward.

  King Tullus, Vidor Rowle and Vidor Weodjic each in their turn poured a draught of their best wine over the stone. Then, Lendenican began the prayer.

  “She’s long-winded, that one,” Weodjic whispered to Rowle beside him. “I should know, I’ve been listening to her for six summers.”

  “Oman have pity on us,” Tullus muttered. “At this rate, we’ll be lucky to see Shamonoza before the next Single Moon.”

  Finally, Lendenican lifted her palms toward the sky, signaling that prayers were completed. There was always a well near the monuments, and servants scurried to draw up a bucket for their master’s animals before the procession began to move once more.

  ***

  As his father drew alongside, Scearce tore his eyes away from the robed figures mounting the litters. He felt a blush creeping to his hairline as Tullus smiled.

  “It is nice to see you amused, father,” he said, unable to meet his father’s eyes. “Though I do wish the source of that amusement was something other than myself.”

  Tullus wa
ved his hand dismissively. “Ah, ‘tis only that you remind me of my own youthful curiosity, once upon a time. I met Shallanoma Silsbee once but she was quite old by that time.”

  Silsbee had been Varden's mother. Scearce shrugged away his embarrassment and instead concentrated on his father. Tullus had not been so talkative since.... Well, since before Alaida died. Perhaps it was one of the promised blessings of the pilgrimage that his father seemed to be returning to the world. Scearce nodded toward Iafrewn’s littler. “She was Gezana, wasn’t she? I’d forgotten.”

  “Yes, the chubby little one’s great grand-aunt.”

  “You thought her plump? However could you tell, under all those robes and veils?”

  His father actually laughed. Not the roaring laugh of Scearce’s youth, but still a welcome sound. “My son, I’ve been studying women far longer than you. Silsbee was very healthy-looking, too.”

  “You couldn’t have been very old then. If she was this Gezana’s great-grand aunt.”

  “Ah, I was barely seven summers. It was my first pilgrimage and I was scared witless that the one of those awful cadia would put some sort of curse on me for staring at the consecratia.”

  Scearce laughed. “If those cadia were anything like Lendenican and that Yanna woman, I’m not surprised. I don’t think I’ve seen so tall a woman. And those black robes, I’ve never seen those either. Do you remember those awful stories Whimal used to tell me about cadia who stole the tongues of bad children?”

  Whimal, his nurse in childhood, feared the cadia more than she feared fever, Tors and slave traders all rolled together. Jeptallans, the farthest removed from Shallanie, saw little of the sisters and held even more superstitions about them than other Omani tribes. No cadia-techa had ever been attached to the Jeptallan royal household, for the simple reason that they had never, in more than a hundred summers and countless generations produced a female offspring. Women married into the Jeptallan Seat, they were not born to it. It was one of the reasons other Omani often regarded the Jeptallans and their entire province with vague suspicion. What family could produce only sons?