The Eunuch's Heir (15 page)

WOLFRAM WAS
searched and prodded, and shoved into some dark place to wait for the dawn. When he sat up straight, his head touched the ceiling of his cell, and he could not stretch out on the floor. From the moans and prayers in the air outside, he knew that his cell was one of many, guarded by a dozen men who roamed listlessly across the courtyard between them. Like the rest of the cell, the door was stone, but had a series of openings pierced into it through which the sounds and the breeze of a passing guard could reach him. One corner of the cell had a hole bored through the floor that revealed its purpose by the lingering odor. Wolfram sat close to the door, his head turned to catch whatever air he could.

His head throbbed, but the damage was not as bad as he had feared. The blood had finally dried to a sticky patch on the back of his head. His shoulders ached, as did his palms. With little else to occupy him, he rolled the scene over and over in his mind. Her gestures had been some sort of magic, no doubt about that. The bracelets and the eye patches must all be related somehow; respect for the royal women indeed. Wolfram laughed aloud, but he did not like the sound of the echoes.

The growing dawn brought visitors for several of the other half doors, mostly poorly dressed women trying to push bits of food through the vents. When his own visitors arrived, Wolfram’s heart rose. Surely, as a foreigner and a prince, they’d not allow him to languish here like these other sorry souls.

Faedre and Esfandiyar knelt outside, while Melody hung back, waiting her turn.

Her eyes ringed with even darker circles, Faedre gazed at him a long moment before she spoke. “Highness, I am afraid you will see the Jeshan as you asked, and under such circumstances as I had feared.”

At these words, and the vanishing from her countenance of all her grace, Wolfram’s heart lurched. He glanced to Esfandiyar, but the other would not meet his eyes.

“All night, we have been pleading in your behalf, you must believe me.”

He swallowed hard. “Tell me straight, Faedre. Is it prison? How long?”

Her eyes welled with sudden compassion, yet they seemed unfocused, as if she saw through him to something else beyond.

Esfandiyar took a breath. “Not prison.”

“Death,” Faedre breathed.

“For touching her hair?” he shouted, pressing his face to the openings. “It was a mistake! It was a bloody stupid accident! Great Goddess.” Esfandiyar flinched. “I wanted to see Melody, privately. Look, I don’t even belong here; surely there’s something you can do?”

“Ignorance has stood in your way, then, Prince Wolfram,” Faedre said, some answering flare rising in her own face, “because the Jeshan does not listen to reason when his daughter has been defiled.”

Wolfram flung himself back from the view, letting his bruised shoulders strike the wall as if the pain could jar him from this nightmare. He had fled a murder in his own country, only to die for touching a woman’s hair. How many other crimes he might be held accountable for, yet this stupid impulse he had followed would be the death of him. Great Goddess indeed.

Faedre rose with a subdued rustle of silk and turned away.

Hovering a moment longer, Esfandiyar said, “I wish that you had told me, Highness Wolfram, and there should have
been another way.” Wolfram glanced up briefly as Esfandiyar’s weary figure rose and retreated.

At last, Melody came, settling herself near his door and leaning into it, pressing her fingers into the openings. Redness haunted her eyes, and her lips trembled. “What was so important, Wolfie? Why couldn’t you wait for me?”

He reached out a hesitant finger and stroked her fingertips, pale and warm against the cold stone. “Could I ever wait if now seemed like the time?” She bent her head to lay her cheek on the stone. “It’s not your fault.”

“How could you leave me like this? I was just getting used to having you around.” She sobbed on the other side of the wall.

He rested his hot forehead on the stone that separated them. “I haven’t been the brother to you that I should have been. For that, I am sorry.”

“You wanted to protect me, Wolfie. I should have protected you.”

“You tried. All of you tried, Melody, I know that.”

They sat in silence a long while, their fingers brushing, before Wolfram got the courage to ask, “Do you know how I’m to be—”

“Don’t ask that,” she wailed, pulling free her fingers. “I can’t tell you.” Her face buried in her hands, Melody fled into Faedre’s comforting arms. “What can we do? There must be something we’ve not tried.”

Faedre glanced back to Wolfram’s hole with a calculating stare. “We have another ally, if she can be reached in time, and I am sure the Two will not allow this travesty.” She drew Melody close to her side, and the trio left his limited range of vision.

Lying back on stone, Wolfram let his mind wander over all the terrible tortures he could imagine. What did they have in store for him? He recalled that Faedre said he might see the Jeshan. Could he plead his case then, or would the king simply witness his execution, whatever hideous form it might take? Lost in such musings, he almost missed the tap at his door. Rolling over, he propped his head on his hand
and looked out. Instantly, he scrambled up and hunched in front of the vent.

On the other side, dressed in her full robes and wrappings, knelt Deishima. A servant hovered nearby with his basket of leaves, looking nervous.

Could she be the ally Faedre had spoken of? But she already knew; she knew it all. “You’re about the last person I expected to see here, after getting me killed.”

“I have got you killed, Your Highness?” Her voice was light and lovely as the accent curled around his language with consummate skill. “It was not I who broke so many laws.”

“If you hadn’t screamed like that, if you hadn’t frozen me with your bloody hands—bury it, there’s a thousand things you could have done, starting by listening to my explanation, or would that be another defilement?”

Two little lines appeared between Deishima’s brows. “It was night, and I was alone, or so I thought. Would any of your ladies have done any differently?”

“What about that magic, then? What did you do to me?”

“Ashwadi,” she replied. “It is a skill of the royal women of my people.”

“It’s why all the men wear eye patches, isn’t it?”

She inclined her head briefly.

Wolfram patted his shirt, and fished out the eye patch Dawsiir had given him. He slipped it on, and turned back to Deishima with an ironic smile. “I guess I’m safe now.” Another part of his world had gone dark with the gesture, and what remained lacked depth and feature.

The arch of her brows crinkled, and he thought for a moment she might weep. “You will not wish to be wearing that soon.”

“Why not?”

“Have you not been told the sentence?”

“Why tell me, it’s only the last day of my life.” The pulse started in his temple, and he felt the impotent rage building up behind his eyes. He shut the one concealed from her, pressing the lids tight to squeeze out the pain.

“It is to be leopards,” Deishima replied. “You will fight the leopards.”

“A fight? So I have a chance.”

“There will be eight leopards.”

“Can’t you just stab me now? Or poison, maybe? Bury it, no wonder Melody wouldn’t say. Goddess’s Tears, what have you done to me?”

“As I told you,” she said calmly, “this is what you have brought upon yourself.” She paused and frowned again. “Why did you touch me?”

“Who knows? Because I’m an idiot who lets his cock lead him to the slaughter every time.” And yet it was not his lust that lured him last night, but something deeper, a longing he dared not articulate. He pressed his palm to his forehead. The pain had never struck so hard before; perhaps the blow to his head angered the demon more than ever.

“Forgive me,” Deishima breathed, her face close to the opening.

“What?” he snapped.

“I have said too much and angered you.” Her quiet words reached through the stone as if they were the breeze.

He eyed her sidelong. She had apologized before he spoke, as if she could see the demon swelling within him. “Why did you come here?” he asked more quietly.

“What you say is true, there are things I could have done and did not. Forgive me for my part in this, Highness Wolfram.”

Her words utterly disarmed him. He wanted more than anything to hurt something, to break or tear or rage, the way he always had, and yet he couldn’t focus that rage upon her, though she sat so close he could smell the spice of her breath. He flipped the eye patch up and let his eyes flash over her before smothering them with the heels of his hands. “Go away,” he moaned. “Please go away.”

“I am sorry,” she said again, then rose and left as silently as she had come.

He did not have long to wait; it seemed the Jeshan would not postpone his entertainment. A rattling of chains signaled
the guards’ arrival, and they hauled him out of the darkness into unbearably strong sunlight. He stumbled between them, trying to see. They paused to fiddle with a gate that allowed exit from the prison block, and someone grabbed his hand.

Wolfram turned sharply. Over the top of the wall, a dark, anxious face regarded him. Dawsiir whispered urgently, but to no avail. He made a vertical sliding motion with his hand, and closed Wolfram’s fingers over a handful of stout, stubby bits of wood. Neither the action nor the gift meant anything to him, but the groom’s desperation was clear, so Wolfram flashed him a grin, as if all were understood.

Dawsiir nodded firmly, and disappeared to the other side of the wall as the guards pulled Wolfram into motion again. He clutched the sticks with all his strength. If he were a good shot, he might blind a leopard with them before he had his arms ripped off.

He didn’t bother to keep track of the turns and yards on this journey; one way or another, he wouldn’t be returning to his cell.

At last they reached a large octagonal courtyard with benches and seats stepped up on all sides near the edge of a pit. Men filled all the seats—guards and courtiers of the palace, and a few who might have been merchants and tradesmen. Off to the left, a large balcony shaded by purple showed where the Jeshan watched. From below, it was hard to see more than the bulk of the man and the gold that twinkled in his turban wrappings. A tall figure stood near, hand dangerously near a sword, as sharp voices reached Wolfram’s ears. Unconcerned, the Jeshan merely gestured below, toward the gate where Wolfram had appeared.

A short sword was thrust into his hand, then the men grabbed him and heaved him forward.

One foot—still bare—struck the edge of the pit, and he curled up as he fell, absorbing the impact on his left hip and shoulder. He rolled, and stood immediately, though swaying, turning quickly to see where they’d thrown him.

About twelve feet deep, the pit was scattered with a few bones, mostly animal from his brief inventory. Each of the
eight walls had a gate centered in it, with a grate at its center and a chain allowing it to be drawn up along grooves in the wall. Dawsiir’s gesture returned to him, and Wolfram sprang for the nearest gate. Fumbling, he shoved one of the blunt sticks into the slight gap between gate and groove.

Even as he ran for the next, the chains groaned, and the gates began their ponderous rise. He jammed the next gate with a gap at the bottom—two fewer leopards. Not much better odds, but a start.

A roar rose above him, and he whirled, his back to the wall.

Across the brown-stained marble leapt the first of the cats, a sleek, spotted devil, its ribs showing its hunger, and powerful jaws issuing a terrible snarl.

Darting to the floor, Wolfram abandoned his sticks and grabbed the largest bone he could, smacking aside the overeager cat as he rose. Already, the others were on him. Claws ripped at his leg, barely deterred by a swift strike of his sword.

He slammed aside another with his bone club, sending it reeling into its fellows. Hissing, two of them tackled the fallen one, leaving Wolfram the time to thrust sharply through the neck of a third.

Shaking off the corpse unbalanced him, and he slid along the wall. The trapped leopards yowled, and one paw shot beneath its stuck gate to tear into his shoulder.

He ducked below the lashing claws, letting them swipe at the furious spotted shape that flung itself at his head. Blood slicked his sword, his own and the cats’. Wolfram tightened his grip and hacked at a leg. He tried to force his legs to support him and gained the wall again on the far side of his caged attacker.

The tenor of the roar in his ears suddenly changed, rising in a shriek of surprise. The leopard nearest kept coming, but a blur of motion behind showed the others changing course.

A feline cry of agony split the bloody air as a shape from above tackled it, jabbing and tearing with a gleaming blade. “On your feet, Wolfram!” a familiar voice cried, and he did not question the command.

Hope surging within him, Wolfram pushed himself up and threw aside his enemy, smashing the knob of bone down on its skull even as his blade swept its chest.

In seconds, his ally had fought her way near, her hammer breaking the jaw of a flying cat as a determined grin spread over her face. Hunting him across the continents, Lyssa had found him here. Her blade joined his, and her voice cried aloud to the Lady.

The Lady indeed had come to him at last. With renewed strength, Wolfram thrust through a leopard aiming at Lyssa’s back, then left the wall to defend her. Back to back, they finished the last two cats, and she stepped aside for him to skewer the one still yowling blood from its ruined face.

Shaking, he left the sword in the soggy fur and turned back to her. He wiped sweat from his eyes, replacing it with blood, and laughed at himself for doing it. “Great Goddess, Lyssa, you’re here!”

She slipped her sword back to its loop, and the hammer joined it. In a long stride, she reached him, her strong arm catching him to her chest before his legs could give out again. “Wolfram, you little fool, don’t you ever do that to me again, you hear? So help me, I’ll kill you myself,” she muttered into his hair. Turning her face skyward, she bellowed, “Get us out of here, you bastards!”