be called slaves of the city of Marakand. And you will do it, because when it is done and you stand before me I will give back all that I have taken, and I will take back what was put upon you, and you will be free.’”
So. The man was an outcast and an exile of the Duina Catairna, clearly, but beyond that . . . it wasn’t her business to understand, only to convey. Deyandara flinched as the sword thudded into the earthen floor before her feet.
“You won’t get an answer to take back to her,” Ahjvar said. The sword still shivered. She stepped away.
“I wasn’t charged to bring any, my lord.” Catairanach had not said she was to carry an answer, only to return. And she had done it again, giving him honours she had no reason to believe he owned. “ Master Ahjvar. I suppose . . . I suppose my duty now is to reach my—to reach the high king at Dinaz Andara as swiftly as I can.” Though she would rather ride in almost any other direction. He was bound to be searching for her. Maybe after all she should go back to the Duina Catairna, as Catairanach had demanded, but to ride alone into an occupied land—no. Even she was not that much a fool, whatever the goddess wanted. She would go to Durandau and, if he had not by then raised all Praitan against Marakand, add her voice and her arguments in defence of Marnoch’s folk.
Her folk.
“The high king should already be on the march, depending on how long it took him to win the other kings to moving.” Ahjvar frowned, calculating the time, it seemed. “This war should have been fought by now, though the kings might prove reluctant, or the gods themselves may be so. They’d turned their backs on Catairanach, and all that’s hers, at one time.”
“That’s an old story,” Deyandara protested.
“Has anyone asked them if they’ve forgiven her?”
“For what?” she protested. There were different songs of why Catairanach had fallen out with the other patron deities of the Praitan kingdoms, everything from a curse she herself had loosed on all of them, to some quarrel over who should hold the high kingship, to a disagreement with Praitanna herself, the greatest of the seven, over a man. It seemed somehow as though it ought to be connected to the curse of misfortune on the royal family and the folk, but no song had it so.
“There’s the curse on the duina ,” Ahjvar said, not answering her question, “Maybe Praitan would be better off without the Duina Catairna, that’s what some kings and their counsellors will say. Let the Catairnan ill-fortune pass to Marakand, lest it spread.”
That at least had a known cause, a dying wizard’s curse, though who the wizard had been, varied. Some songs even had it one of the seven devils, the Northron Ogada, who had wooed some long-ago queen, or Tu’usha the Restless, who had fought a wild goddess and a band of demons in the Malagru, though why she would then have cursed the Duina Catairna was not clear. “No wizard could ill-wish an entire folk, even if he put his death into it,” Deyandara protested. “That they were cursed is only a story.”
“And you, a bard, say so, yes? After saying yourself its kings are ill-fated? ‘A twisted root and poison in the vein,’ you said. Only a story . But you’re not a bard, are you? Not in the marrow where it counts. You’re a lady of the Duina Andara, a king’s sister. You get to enjoy a few years of running free. When the way gets too long and the road too cold and your bones start to ache in the night, you’ll let your brother persuade you to be useful, to be off to some prince’s bed, be a lady of the royal hall again.” The Leopard bowed, on his feet, sweeping her towards the door. “Good day, Lady Deyandara. Go sing them a song at the tavern. Give them a clown’s wedding.”
She was scrambling back over the garden wall before she knew it, face burning. How dare he? How dare he speak to the high king’s sister so? A godless, outcast murderer, by
So. The man was an outcast and an exile of the Duina Catairna, clearly, but beyond that . . . it wasn’t her business to understand, only to convey. Deyandara flinched as the sword thudded into the earthen floor before her feet.
“You won’t get an answer to take back to her,” Ahjvar said. The sword still shivered. She stepped away.
“I wasn’t charged to bring any, my lord.” Catairanach had not said she was to carry an answer, only to return. And she had done it again, giving him honours she had no reason to believe he owned. “ Master Ahjvar. I suppose . . . I suppose my duty now is to reach my—to reach the high king at Dinaz Andara as swiftly as I can.” Though she would rather ride in almost any other direction. He was bound to be searching for her. Maybe after all she should go back to the Duina Catairna, as Catairanach had demanded, but to ride alone into an occupied land—no. Even she was not that much a fool, whatever the goddess wanted. She would go to Durandau and, if he had not by then raised all Praitan against Marakand, add her voice and her arguments in defence of Marnoch’s folk.
Her folk.
“The high king should already be on the march, depending on how long it took him to win the other kings to moving.” Ahjvar frowned, calculating the time, it seemed. “This war should have been fought by now, though the kings might prove reluctant, or the gods themselves may be so. They’d turned their backs on Catairanach, and all that’s hers, at one time.”
“That’s an old story,” Deyandara protested.
“Has anyone asked them if they’ve forgiven her?”
“For what?” she protested. There were different songs of why Catairanach had fallen out with the other patron deities of the Praitan kingdoms, everything from a curse she herself had loosed on all of them, to some quarrel over who should hold the high kingship, to a disagreement with Praitanna herself, the greatest of the seven, over a man. It seemed somehow as though it ought to be connected to the curse of misfortune on the royal family and the folk, but no song had it so.
“There’s the curse on the duina ,” Ahjvar said, not answering her question, “Maybe Praitan would be better off without the Duina Catairna, that’s what some kings and their counsellors will say. Let the Catairnan ill-fortune pass to Marakand, lest it spread.”
That at least had a known cause, a dying wizard’s curse, though who the wizard had been, varied. Some songs even had it one of the seven devils, the Northron Ogada, who had wooed some long-ago queen, or Tu’usha the Restless, who had fought a wild goddess and a band of demons in the Malagru, though why she would then have cursed the Duina Catairna was not clear. “No wizard could ill-wish an entire folk, even if he put his death into it,” Deyandara protested. “That they were cursed is only a story.”
“And you, a bard, say so, yes? After saying yourself its kings are ill-fated? ‘A twisted root and poison in the vein,’ you said. Only a story . But you’re not a bard, are you? Not in the marrow where it counts. You’re a lady of the Duina Andara, a king’s sister. You get to enjoy a few years of running free. When the way gets too long and the road too cold and your bones start to ache in the night, you’ll let your brother persuade you to be useful, to be off to some prince’s bed, be a lady of the royal hall again.” The Leopard bowed, on his feet, sweeping her towards the door. “Good day, Lady Deyandara. Go sing them a song at the tavern. Give them a clown’s wedding.”
She was scrambling back over the garden wall before she knew it, face burning. How dare he? How dare he speak to the high king’s sister so? A godless, outcast murderer, by
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