She goes on and on. Pretends that this will be a union of equals when it will be annexation in all but name. Pontificates about unity and togetherness, deliberately fans the flames of indignation around the compound with her glib words.
As she speaks, Salo sinks further into paralyzed panic. What if Nimara was right, and all this could have been avoided if he’d only spoken up about the secret he’s keeping? What if he could have saved Monti?
Do you know what difference you could have made?
In the end, what drives him forward is a single thought, an accusation leveled at him by someone who knows better.
The problem with you, Salo, is never that you can’t. It’s that you won’t even try.
“Irediti Ariishe! AmaYerezi who is Queen! I am unworthy, but please, grant me your ear!”
How now, what’s this? Who would be so bold as to interrupt a mystic’s speech? Murmurs and gasps arrest the compound. Eyes widen; fingers point. At the back of the gathering, in front of AmaSiningwe’s old hut, Salo has gone down on one knee, his hands pressed together. He, an unblessed former cowherd in a white loincloth, has interrupted a mystic’s speech.
“What in the pits is he doing?” says an alarmed voice behind him.
He ignores it. “Irediti Ariishe! Please, have mercy and let me approach!”
Shocked disapproval. Insults muttered under the din. This might be a Sibere mystic, but what Salo is doing is sacrilege.
“What’s the meaning of this?” AmaSibere says, peering over the seated clanspeople to get a good look at him. “You wear no steel, and yet you dare interrupt me? VaSiningwe”—she turns to sneer at the chief—“what have you been teaching your boys?”
VaSiningwe says nothing; perhaps he is too speechless or too furious, but Salo can’t stop now. “Irediti of the stars and the moon! Irediti who is lovelier than a bloodrose at dawn! Irediti who is—”
“You may approach, young man,” says a voice that cuts through the air with merciless precision, silencing all others.
Just what Salo was hoping for, but his joints lock in place, and he gapes at the queen like a juvenile hare watching a colorful python slithering toward it. AmaSibere’s mouth hangs open just like his, but she rediscovers her tongue first.
“Your Majesty! He is not blessed! He cannot speak before the council. That’s sacrilege!”
“It is,” the queen says from her wicker throne. “But I am curious. Approach, young man.”
Like a lost child, Salo gets up from his knees and stumbles through his clanspeople, making his way to the clearing in front of the council. He can’t avoid glancing at Niko and his brothers along the way, and the wide-eyed horror he sees there doesn’t surprise him. But this is something he must do.
He reaches the center of the clearing and goes down on one knee again, making an effort to drown out everyone else. He focuses on the queen, this vision of cold beauty who now holds his fate in her hands.
“Thank you for granting me this audience, Your Majesty,” he says.
So close, she is simply bewitching. Her flawless bronze skin holds an otherworldly inner glow. Her lips are dusted with flecks of gold so that they glitter. A tiny smile tugs at them now, and it’s not friendly.
“Don’t thank me just yet,” she says. “I haven’t done you any favors, and I cannot protect you from the consequences of this sacrilege. I only wish to find out what was so important you couldn’t hold your tongue.” She motions at him to rise. “Stand up and speak loudly. I’m sure your clanspeople are curious as well.”
The first pangs of regret wrap themselves so tightly around Salo’s heart he feels like it might explode. What if he faints? What if his bowels loosen and he shits and pisses himself right here, in front of the queen?
The terror of that last thought brings him up to his feet. His arms forget what to do with themselves, so he pushes his spectacles in and clasps his hands together in front of him. The gesture probably looks clumsy.
“Speak, Yerezi-kin,” the queen prompts. “We are listening.”
And so Salo clears his throat and begins to speak to the most powerful person in the Yerezi Plains.
“Irediti Ariishe,” he says in obeisance, “VaSiningwe the Great, AmaSibere who is Chosen, the wise council, and my beloved Siningwe-kin. My name is Musalodi Deitari Siningwe, first son of the Summer Leopard, and I accept responsibility for my clan’s plight.”
10: Kelafelo
Namato—Umadiland
On the afternoon of the first full moon after her arrival at the Anchorite’s hut, Kelafelo returns from the river with a ewer of water balanced on her head to find the old mystic sitting on a stool beneath the witchwood tree. Resting on the ground in front of her is a basket with a lid concealing its contents.
“Bring out a mat and come sit down, young girl,” the Anchorite says.
“Yes, Mamakuru.” Kelafelo peeks down at the basket as she walks by but learns nothing of what might be inside. Still, her heart begins to race with anticipation; she has been here for a few weeks now, and the Anchorite has yet to begin instructing her in the mystic arts. Perhaps that’s about to change.
Inside the hut she sets the ewer down next to the other three she has already filled and takes a mat of woven grass from where it hangs on the mud-plastered walls. Her recovery from the attack on her village was brutal, a feverish hell the Anchorite did little to alleviate. She’s much better now, though the scar on her belly still aches when she bends over. Kelafelo has learned to use the pain as her motivation, a constant reminder of why she is still alive.
Back outside the suns are low, casting long superimposed double shadows, and in the east the full moon is a swollen, heavily pockmarked crimson disk emerging from the horizon. Kelafelo spreads the mat and sits on the other side of the basket like a respectful granddaughter, her hands clasped in front of her.
“I am here, Mamakuru,” she says, addressing the old woman as her grandmother. If this displeases the Anchorite, she hasn’t shown it.
“Tell me why you want to learn magic,” she commands, her milky eyes staring into the distance.
For Kelafelo, the answer could not be simpler. “For the power to kill the men who took everything from me.”
A sneer twists the Anchorite’s leathery face. “And what makes you think yourself worthy of such power, or that your bones could even contain it, when it has broken so many others before you? Speak, girl.”
The razor edge in her voice gives Kelafelo pause, and she takes a moment to calculate an appropriate response. What is she really asking me? “My hatred burns as hot as the suns, and I have the blood of a warlord in my veins. I will not break.”
“The blood of a warlord,” the Anchorite repeats, tilting her head to one side in curious amusement.
“My father ruled in the northwest before he was killed in battle,” Kelafelo says. “I never knew him, but I am his daughter all the same.”
The Anchorite digests this expressionlessly. “I see. And your mother?”
“Died in childbirth. I was raised by my uncle and his wives.”
“The daughter of a warlord raised by her aunts.” The Anchorite puts on a grim smile. “It is no wonder anger and hatred come so naturally to you.”