Chapter 12
Velona’s eyes flicked to where Osumlik stood in the draped moss. “How much time do I have?”
“Oh, rather less than half an hour, ma’am,” he said, bowing. “Then we shall need to begin a new set of treatments. You will need ah, extensive bed rest for that.”
“Yes…of course.” Her sagging eyes blinked for a moment in the darkness. “Once I saw all my lands atop my destrier, Fallowdance. Now I am confined to the landscape of my sheets. Such is my devotion to my bloodline.”
“It seems a grave thing, madam,” said Ana, “to shape your body in this distinct manner.”
“Is it?” said Velona. Something in her eyes flashed. “I am a rancher born. I have seen miracles done in this trade of flesh and blood. And besides, is this not the Empire? Are we not experts in leaf, root, branch—and tissue, even our own?”
Ana bowed but said no more.
“I know you have spoken to my nephew Ippeas, and Fotia here,” continued Velona. “As well as my brother. I will presume they told you the truth, then—that Castus, my youngest, could not have done this crime.”
“They told Din this, yes,” said Ana.
“And what do you think?” she demanded.
“Oh, we are open to all possibilities, madam!”
“All?” said Velona. She sat forward. Coral again shifted discontentedly in her lap. “When you say all, how do you mean it? Do you mean another fellow could have done this deed? Or that there is some foul work here? Or something even stranger? Tell me now! Be specific!”
“Well—I am of Sazi stock, ma’am,” said Ana. “From the innermost rings of the Empire. My upbringing there made me aware of many mysteries—some we can comprehend, and others we cannot guess at. Thus, I am open to more explanations of the world than most.”
I suppressed the urge to frown. Ana, I knew, was profoundly contemptuous of nearly any explanation for any crime besides basic human stupidity or greed.
Behind most every murder, Din, she often told me, is a fool who thought they’d gain a pocketful of talints, or earn a satisfying hump or two out of the killing.
Yet I knew she now played to Velona’s spiritual leanings and stayed silent.
The answer seemed to please Velona. “Mysteries…” she said quietly.
“Yes. I am beset by mysteries. Not puzzles, or riddles—but those of a more…uncanny sort. An alignment of deeds and, and events that cannot be natural. You saw my works when you came in, yes? The heads of my beauties, and the specimens I have wrought?”
“I did not,” said Ana, gesturing to her blindfold. “But I presume you mean those most admirable urhosi creatures Din mentioned he saw?”
“Indeed. They are the fruit of all my labors. I have overseen the development and breeding of lines of urhosi that are as unlike their ancestors as diamonds are from rough! I’ve procured bulls and cows from all across the Empire, and applied suffusions and grafts to them to augment their biologies so that their progeny is without compare.
There is the penguia line, for example, who yield the greatest, most marbled cuts for the table.
There is the forctia, grandest of all, who are to other cattle as gods are to common men.
This I did, you see, because of the bounty of this land, left by our forebears. ”
Velona fished in her robes and pulled out a charm that hung from her neck by a silver chain. I recognized the symbol: it was the one that had been engraved on the brows of the Daljen statues outside—two spheres placed on either side of a vertical line—but I still had no inkling what it meant.
Velona saw my confusion. “It is the sign of Master Gaddar!” she said with a touch of anger. “The tree bearing fruit, for he was lord of all orchards!”
“Of course,” Ana said quickly. “Of course, madam…”
“There is no richer earth than here!” said Velona.
“Not in all the Empire! The arc of soil across these hills is undoubtedly the work of the Daljen. With these fields they fed the elder Empire, their many blessed sister tribes of the Khanum, and the common folk! They were the shepherds, and we their flock. All that occurred here was given their boon—and all that sinned, they punished.” She replaced the totem in her robes.
“Are you familiar, Dolabra, with the songs of the Daljen?”
Ana hesitated. “I am familiar with one story, of the Daljeni figure known as Qul,” she said. “How he came upon a wretched man, and sang him a new fate to afflict him for the rest of his days…”
“Yes. Yes. The Khanum of old had mighty voices and could sing a curse or prayer upon a common man and change his very destiny! This I know all too well…”
“You suspect,” said Ana, “that the ancestors are punishing you now, madam? You, or your line—they have sung you a new fate?”
“Yes,” said Velona. “This is obvious! I…I try to defy it now.” She placed a hand upon her bloated stomach. “The Armenta line must be given an heir. That is our heritage. That is our oath.”
“But why would the great ancestors wish to take your children, madam?” asked Ana. “What could you have done to earn their ire?”
“I don’t know!” cried Velona. “This question afflicts me greatly. But I know my sorrows are not natural! I know it—because of how it started with Lyimo.”
“Tell me, madam,” said Ana softly. “Please.”
Velona gazed at Ana as if reassessing her. I saw in an instant what she might perceive in my immunis: Ana looked very much like a witch in nearly any light, but especially in this dim, dismal place. Someone given to superstition might imagine unnatural wisdom in her pale figure.
“My beautiful boy, my eldest,” Velona began.
“He was confident, assured. Not at all a creature of sorrow, nor given to tragedy or despair. All admired him! All looked forward to the day when he would inherit our spreads! He had turned his thoughts toward marriage, and many families of great worth had begun sending him entreaties for attention, and gifts. At first Lyimo delighted in this—yet then he grew distracted. It was as if he’d forgotten about marriage at all.
Instead, he began…slipping away at night. ”
“Slipping away?” asked Ana. “To where?”
“To the forest,” whispered Velona. “He would walk across our fields, until he came to the border of the forest. And there he would stand stock-still, like a statue, gazing in! Something had seduced him there. Called him. Sang to him, perhaps! And then they found him in the pond—yet where was this pond, of all places?”
“Near the forest,” murmured Ana, playing along. “Of course…”
“And what is in the forest?” said Velona, giddy to find a fellow conspirator.
“The resting place of the ancients! There are countless shrines and statues within those trees, many that we cannot access! And there, at the center, their tomb, forbidden to all. It could only have been the work of the Daljen! Their song, from the deeps of the earth. I…I do not know what I have done to earn their wrath. Is it our wealth? Is fortune always to be followed by her trail of dead?” She shut her eyes.
“How I dream of the feel of my children, the sight of them, the smell of them. Of…of being out of this tomb of a bedchamber. I dream of riding with them, of the great sky, of the chambers kept for us at the Prancing Calf in the city. How wondrous were our festivities at that fine place. So many toasts, and much boasting and tales and song.” She opened her eyes and demanded, “Where are you staying? Are you put anywhere decent?”
“We lodge at the Green Drover, ma’am.”
“Hm. A middling place. We often send our merchants there. It may be suitable for you. The Drover is for work, the Calf for play. My Lyimo knew that well.”
I recalled what Seriv had said of the Prancing Calf: they offer…
different entertainments. And I don’t much enjoy the idea of one such entertainer wandering into your immunis’s rooms. When I took that into account—along with Lyimo’s rather smug grin on the painting outside—his fondness for the Prancing Calf made a terrific sense.
“We preserved Lyimo’s body and quickly sealed him,” continued Velona, “as is the custom of our folk. All know there shall come a day when the Empire’s arts catch up to our forebears, and we are again capable of suffusing life back into the dead.
But then came Sagma and Gevma. And that is when I knew my persecution was divine in origin!
For though my second son and daughter perished in very different manners soon after, they both experienced horrific dreams in the weeks before they died! ”
My eyes fluttered, and I recalled what Ippeas had told me of Gevma: he was deeply disturbed and saddened the weeks before. I know he was not sleeping. He tottered about the halls of Aimafall as if a ghost.
“Dreams,” said Ana softly. “What kind of dreams, madam?”
“Dreams of being lost in this house! Of being frozen in their chambers! Sagma dreamed of being unable to leave her room, unable to make anyone hear her, and was forced to dress herself before her mirror over and over again! And when she died, she was dressed as if she had just arrayed herself for the day, her dress and ribbons all done—as if she wished to wake up from this never-ending nightmare.”
“I see,” said Ana softly. “And Gevma?”
“He dreamed of the same. Of being trapped in his chambers. Of standing in his room, unable to move. As if frozen in place!” She leaned forward. “Do you see my worry? Our souls may be sealed here! We may be damned to dwell within these walls, forever!”
“That makes a strange sense…” said Ana very seriously. “But did Lyimo complain of any dreams?”
“Lyimo? No. No, his acquaintances did not say so.”
“I see. And…you mentioned he was planning marriage, and many families were sending him gifts. What manner of gifts, might I ask?”
“Oh, many things. Treasures. Gold, and gems. Cakes. Chocolates from the far north. I recall he was enormously pleased after being sent a crate of prized sotwine…A Choros Ayak vintage, I believe.”