The Totem-Maker (part sixty)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Six

A First Road

(part sixty)

“Eat. So that I may.”

I pooled wine in my bowl, sopped my bread, finished while I watched around me. Many of the Emperor’s men were aboard these vessels of our hosts; the Hezhnian soldiers aboard our own.

“Will they add to our ranks, the Hezhnians?” I asked. “Do I name them properly?”

“They will not. Now, stand. Look where the mountains are peaked in whiteness. That is snow. Have you seen snow? Not on distant Lotoq when he does not roar. Have you put your hands and feet in it?”

Snow? He made me fear it. As I wavered, someone flew at me… I saw her in a blur, falling backwards.

The Prince took my elbow. Jute made a display of fretting, straightening my clothes right and left, pulling me a step, and another, closer.

“Deliver me,” she whispered.

“May my servant… Who you see is so attached to me, may she not keep her place? Is there no other gift for Lady Darsale?”

“Erjuta Ohn knows well there is no comparable gift.”

On the slippery deck she ran, failing to speed herself, and made a frantic climb. She would have thrown herself into the harbor.

But sailors, at the Prince’s shout, dragged her to him.

“This woman is a stowaway. Make her a prisoner.”

“Might the gift be postponed,” I said. “Promised for another time?”

“Why do you suppose not? Let me see you exercise your own gift.”

“Darsale carries a kingdom with her, to her marriage. Lord Sente wants no part of it…that is not divination, but a thing you have marked, and will use to his regret. The kingdom was Jute’s, and Jute was taken by the Emperor’s men. The Lady Darsale is her young sister. They will scarce have known each other…and were, I think, reared in the houses of different mothers. Jute is not to die, she is to be humiliated. Among your people I see a satisfaction in such endings. There, Lord Prince.”

“Ah. We are very sober now. Perhaps Darsale will be kind.”

“Jute does not ask for kindness.”

I heard a sob. It had left my mind, in this exchange, that she heard me speak of her.

“Remove her,” the Prince said. “An escort waits ashore. You will go to your duties at once. A tollhouse sits on a road between two peaks, two warring gods. But snow is their weapon, and until the short days, they are unarmed.”

I heard him speak, but while I could, I held Jute’s eyes. And sent to her my promise, I will not forget. When I can help in some way, I will call it duty…even if I rise to any height in this world.

Trust me, Jute, or not.

64

A First Road

The Totem-Maker (part sixty-one)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)