Pyrebound - 14.2
Author: theredsheep

Chapter 14.2 – Pyrebound

Over the next tetrad, Ram gained a new appreciation for the unpleasantness of Zasha’s job. Not that he spoke with Zasha much—the man was seldom ever home, and when he did he made it very clear that he had no wish to talk to Ram, Darun, or anyone else but Jezrimin and his family. His interactions with Ram mainly took the form of dour glances. Which was only fair; he really was the source of Zasha’s worst problems. It seemed silly to protest that you didn’t mean to overthrow someone’s government.

So Ram left his host alone, and focused on his own worries instead. He had clear memories of ten lifetimes, and hazy glimpses into twenty or thirty more, and not one of them could tell him what happened when an indwelt man sired a child on a normal human woman. At least five handmaidens had become pregnant, and in two cases had their sons strangled on delivery. Two others had birthed daughters, who were discreetly raised as handmaidens with false parentage. The fifth was hidden with a convoluted scheme that fell apart when he was five, but that was at least a century back and Ram’s inner chronicle was vague on the details.

None of it was any help; ensis seldom dallied with ordinary women, and it was anyone’s guess whether Darun’s child would come out indwelt, or even healthy. Neither Imbri nor Shazru could do more than speculate. Mother and Tirnun took turns fretting and hovering over Darun when they got tired of fretting over their other problems; Mother was a little less hostile to Darun once the nausea started. Darun, on the other hand, was considerably more hostile, especially after Shazru told her that tinap brews were not necessarily safe for pregnant women.

The one thing Ram could do for his child, at the moment, was wed its mother, which he did on the next peak day. Darun’s last objections to being “tied down” vanished when the period of obligation shrank to less than three blooms. There was no ceremony, and only Tir and Father on hand to witness when Ram took his wife’s hand at Misishi’s little shrine to Kuara. Mother’s disapproval of bastardy was not quite strong enough to override her disapproval of Darun. Not that she cared to spend time in Ram’s company at all, since she learned about his inheritance. Some things were too painful for even Mother to bear.

When the revolving drama of life in the house got to be too much, Ram retreated to Father’s new workshop outside the Tegnembassaga, helping him just like he was fourteen again. He knew he was clumsy for lack of practice, and more nuisance than help, but that hardly mattered. Stone was cheap here, if you weren’t picky about quality, and the market was dead now anyway. They spent hours together in near-perfect silence, putting the last touches on delicate statuettes that nobody would buy. At times Bal would join them, knapping edges on their remainders to busy his hands.

Meanwhile, the world kept moving without them. Though Zasha kept silent, it was obvious enough that big changes were coming to the Dominion. They weren’t terribly surprised when, on the fifth day after Ram’s return from the rookery, Zasha announced over dinner that there would be a council at Dul Jazaral on the peak of the tetrad, with representatives from seven pyres. Ram took it as a matter of course that he would be coming. Zasha thought otherwise.

“This is a delicate situation, and you’ve done enough damage already,” he said. “Let the diplomatic professionals handle this one.” By which he meant himself. But the very next day he received word of special requests from three other pyres for the rogue En and Ensi of Dul Karagi to attend and speak in their own defense. They had no choice but to allow Ram along, under strict instructions to speak only when asked a direct question, and answer “with careful deliberation.”

“You really think I’d answer any other way, under the circumstances?” he asked, and got a sardonic look in reply.

Dul Jazaral had been chosen as an accessible middle point between attendees; the fact that it was accustomed to hospitality on short notice was only a bonus. A skybarque from Misishi could just barely reach the pyre itself without wobbling in a demeaning way as it came in for a landing. They were the last to arrive, dropping down their barque next to five others on the designated field. This was by design. Zasha didn’t care to give anyone time to chatter with Ram before the meeting started.

There were seven in their delegation. Zasha, as his lugal’s cousin, was their leader, with his other cousin Nerimmi and an acolyte scribe on hand to assist. Dezri and Nishal fell in beside Ram as he debarked, each with a pair of bullspikes dangling in a long pouch at his belt. Which was remarkably tacky, Ram thought, but he wouldn’t chafe at it.

Erimana came out last, looking glum and exhausted. It wasn’t easy being the only person on Ki who really mourned for Shimrun. Ram had made some clumsy efforts to comfort her, but he still didn’t know his sister very well, and he had his own problems to focus on. Rinti would have been better, if only they’d dared to bring two handmaidens along. He reached back and took his little sister’s hand. She didn’t refuse it, but still lagged behind him, like an ox led by a rope. This wouldn’t be pleasant for her—but there would be a better life ahead, and soon, if Ram succeeded.

Dul Jazaral was far larger than the hearth Ram had visited before, far smaller than Dul Karagi. The temple at the top of the hill was much the same in size and shape, though without a murrush to guard it; they would have a hard time finding a replacement for Mankalussu. Ram couldn’t identify any of the other buildings as their lugal’s palace. Around twenty fine houses ringed the slopes, with a lot of ancillary facilities—stables, bondsmen’s quarters, storehouses—at the bottom.

These in turn were surrounded by a ring-shaped lake. Just outside that moat the farms began; there would be a few acres of beans and garden plants, but most of the good arable land was given over to grain, and most of that would feed beasts, not men. Few people lived at this pyre, and there was no point in growing enough for trade. Nobody came wandering over the desert to buy produce. And outside the farms were pastures, endless pastures full of horses, cattle and sheep, watched over by thousands of shining glass spires.

What had the Damadzus told him about this place? It was a waypoint, cut off from the rest of the Dominion by miles of dry sand, and different in every way from the average, ordinary river pyre. Each hearth was little more than the household of its master, who was only one favored member of a vast ruling family. Here there were flamekeepers, handmaidens, and bondservants, with almost nobody in between. No artisans to make and sell goods—they bought and sold what they needed from the caravans. No militia—they hired moonchildren instead. A Jatui of standing rode about the countryside each day making sure his herds and flocks (and they were very much his) were being properly cared for. There was little else to do out here.

The Jatui would be only the strangest of six groups of worried and angry men they would have to deal with today. Ram knew Dul Karagi well enough, but not the delegates their new lugal would send to bargain for him. Of the others—Natati, Shebnai, Shasipir, and Tendum—Ram knew very little. He’d never even been to Tendum, the last outpost at the headwaters of the Teshalun north of Misishi.

On the other hand, Ram now had centuries of life experiences to call on. He could recall, broadly, seven attempts to overthrow the lugals. They’d all failed sooner or later, obviously, but Ram had a good idea of when, why, and how they’d gone wrong. He knew the big picture, could take a longer view than almost any other man alive. Certainly longer than any of the other delegates. They would be lost and frightened, children of a divorced household who had seen the foundation of their world fall apart, could tell why it had happened, but couldn’t accept or process it on an emotional level.

Which meant this called for a certain amount of tact and delicacy, neither of which Ram had ever found much of a knack for. Haranduluz? I’m not too proud to ask.

It was a long Jatui tradition to hold all important discussions under the open sky; closed rooms were too secretive for men used to riding the plains. A half-dozen flamekeepers rode out to meet them, dyed horsetails streaming from the tips of their indwelt lances, and escorted them across a broad bridge to a little plaza at the base of the hill, where thirty or forty men were gathered around the periphery of a broad decorative pool.

This was the first real extravagance Ram had seen at Jatu; it must have been staggeringly expensive to import all the marble that lined it with only pack-beasts crossing the desert, not to mention the inlaid gold tracework. Deep, colorfully striped awnings were set up in a ring around the pool, with tables and chairs beneath for the comfort and convenience of the delegates. The dazzle of the pyre’s light on the pool could not have been comfortable or convenient, for men who weren’t indwelt, but Ram supposed it would let them keep meeting at night.

Right now, the God’s light showed a long row of weary, angry faces looking in their direction, most with dark rings around their eyes. There was only one free table remaining—the one right in front of them as they approached the pool.

On the opposite side a man in a long red coat stood up from his table. “Late you come but welcome still,” he said loudly. “And you come here peace intending, take a cup and quaff your fill.”

Zasha duly took a glass cup from off the lone table, dipped it into the pool, and drank the cup down in one draw. His cousin and the acolyte followed suit, then Dezri and Nishal. Ram and Mana shouldn’t have gone last—Ram outranked the lot, and Mana was at least ahead of ordinary flamekeepers—but there was nothing to be gained by demanding purely symbolic honors at this point. If it came to that, he wasn’t sure Zasha had any formal rank at all.

When all seven of them had taken a drink and a seat, the man at the far side spoke again: “I be Nershimi zen-Teplu ni-Jazaral, and these be mine.” He gestured to the two men on either side of him, plus a pair of acolytes as scribes. “I take you for Misishins, I hope in sooth?”

“I am Zasha zen-Tirnun ni-Misishi.”

“And the boy?” said a man off to their right, craning his neck. “Is that supposed to be him there?”

“That is Rammash im-Belemel,” another voice confirmed from the table to the host’s right. “I am certain of it.” Ram looked, and saw it was Piridur, but he was seated at the end of his table, not the center. He imagined Piridur was only here at all to confirm Ram’s identity. As the son of a disgraced Lugal, he might not even be Second Sword anymore.

“The reins be mine, masters,” Nershimi huffed. “I pray you be not unruly. Speak you on my sufferance, and not before. As for the matter, self-warrant will do for present. Be you Rammash im-Belemel ta-Urapu ni-Karagi, young sir?”

“No,” Ram said. Zasha startled, and shot him an evil look. Mutters rose all around the pool. Ram gave them a few seconds before elaborating, “I am Rammash zen-Darun tem-Karagi.”

The muttering stopped abruptly. Tem-Karagi? “All right, Zasha,” said a man at the table to their left, “where’d you hide the other one? Playing it safe?” Nershimi was too shocked to scold him for speaking out of turn.

Zasha pursed his lips. “Shimrun im-Sutiri was left behind at Dul Atellu when the boy escaped, and we cannot extract him. We cannot speak with certainty as to his survival.”

“Kurtushi,” the other man spat. “You know more than that. You’ve been playing one hell of a game here, Zasha, and if you won’t level with us now we can remind you what the stakes are.”

“There be no call for such talk!” Nershimi cried. “Peace we spoke and peace we drank and peace we will have by the pool.”

“By the pool, yes,” the other man retorted. “I don’t mean to start a brawl. But I thought we were here to talk business. Zasha’s been aiding the little bastard for months, from what I hear. Most if not all of this mess is Misishi’s fault. There are penalties for this kind of behavior.”

“Rammash is my brother-in-law, Ninbi,” Zasha replied smoothly. “My limited assistance to him and his family falls well within the bounds of kinship duty.” At least one person laughed in disbelief; Zasha didn’t react. “I could hardly help that he was put to flight in the first place by his own pyre’s internal affairs.”

“A rogue bull is no man’s kin,” came a voice from the table to their right.

“And kinship duty hardly squares with the pay he made to your account,” added the man sitting next to Piridur. “We brought the contract, Zasha. Why did he want us to pay you?”

“I wasn’t aware it was Rammash doing the payment,” Zasha said. “Do recall that all those deposits were to be made anonymously. I only learned about it a few days ago; he was covering for a bit of embezzlement by one of his blackband friends. Awkward, but no concern of yours. I am prepared to make good on Karagi’s losses.”

“You can’t even begin to fathom Karagi’s losses!” the man snarled back.

“Or Natati’s,” chimed in a voice on the far side of the host’s table. The host himself had his face in his hands, apparently giving up on civility.

“Or Shebnai’s,” added the man in the next table over. “How many kindlings are you prepared to put that hole of yours in hock, Zasha, to pay all this back? You’ll be dead before the debt’s paid.”

“I personally will reimburse Dul Karagi for the sum they were obliged to pay to my account,” Zasha clarified. “Misishi itself is blameless and accepts no liability for the present situation, which originated in the political difficulties of a distant pyre. I took on a kinship duty, and discharged that duty. None of which is any of your business. You will find the true source of your troubles lies several hundred miles down the Teshalun.”

It was a wonderfully insolent display, and while Ram didn’t know the details of law or custom where ‘rogue bulls’ were concerned, he was pretty sure none of the men around that pool could actually catch him in a lie. Nershimi had to pull a hunting horn out from under his table to cut through the perfect storm of oaths, curses, protests, objections, and general abuse that flew at Zasha the moment he finished speaking.

“I like this not,” the host said, when they’d all shut up. “We come in peace and good order, and both we shall have. Mark well, we have all a stake in play here, every man of us, else we’d be elsewhere. Yes, Etana?”

The man at the center of Karagi’s table had held up a hand. He looked about fifty, with a heavy beard and a fringe of hair falling low over his forehead. If Ram recalled correctly, Etana was the name of their new lugal. He’d come in person? “I think we can agree that we didn’t come all the way here to speak with Zasha zen-Tirnun, whatever he has to say. If Rammash ‘tem-Karagi’ is right there, he’s sixteen, and I for one would like to hear him speak for himself. Beginning with the ‘tem-Karagi.’ You lost the damn ensi, and we’re only hearing about it now? How exactly did that happen?”

“Seconded,” said several voices from the other side of the pool at once.

“Fair enough,” Zasha said. “Rammash?”

They’d expected this. But that didn’t make it any less intimidating to stand up in front of that crowd. “Shimrun’s only been dead for a couple of tetrads now,” he said. “Zasha thought it was better to tell you in person. Mannagiri—the ensi of Dul Atellu—killed him.”

“It might be better if you started at the beginning,” someone piped up, “for those of us who have no idea what is going on. Which is most of us. I’ve heard a lot of garbled rumors.”

“No!” Etana insisted, thumping a hand on his table. “This boy has a long history of deception and subterfuge. Before we hear anything he has to say, I’d like to see him furnish proof that he is in fact the ensi. I don’t need my time wasted with yet another ruse.”

Ram shut his eyes, and Mana stood up next to him. “It’s not just your time, Lugal,” she told him in her thick voice. “But you can ask me any question you want about Urapu hearth. This handmaiden hasn’t been there since she was an infant, and Shimrun only saw it through the hearth-fire. He doesn’t know who all lived there.”

“That wouldn’t be too hard to fake,” Etana argued. “You briefed the other bull ahead of time, in detail, and he’s controlling both of you in turn from wherever you’ve hidden him. Anyway, I don’t know a thing about the wretched hearth, and couldn’t catch you.”

“About the pyre, then,” he had Mana say. “or Pilupura. Anything I would know that Shimrun and Mana wouldn’t.”

Piridur put a hand on his lugal’s shoulder. “Excuse me, sir. Ram, where did we first meet in Pilupura, and where did we go immediately after?”

“In the shrine of Nythrys on the God’s Creche,” Mana said at once, “a round black building with moon designs in the windows. There was a low table in the middle with glass offerings on it. Imbri was there too. You took us to Naimenka’s Garden after. The window had a picture of Haranduluz and Kuara together, and they had some metal contraption in place of a chamber-pot. We had dinner there, and you talked about the galley regatta. There was bread with all kinds of dip for breakfast, and I told you Shimrun was loose so you had Darun come back early from shopping for clothes.”

Piridur shook his head. “If that’s Shimrun talking,” he said, “Ram coached him beautifully.”

An acolyte spoke up from the next table. “Unless the en is relaying it to Shimrun in the first place.”

Mana sat down, and Ram opened his eyes again. He’d made his point. “It would be one hell of a trick to say all that back perfectly as I was telling it to him. But suppose he did. How else do you want me to prove I’m ensi? Anything I do, you’ll say Shimrun’s doing it for me.” Mana whimpered, and he put a gentle hand on her back. It would have been hard enough for grown woman.

“The boy’s got you there,” said Ninbi with a laugh. “If that bull’s still alive, he’s in Atellu. Good luck getting him out.”

“It’s not quite so funny to those of us who have actually suffered through this,” said the leader at Shebnai’s table. “We’ve had six hundred dead to burn so far, likely a thousand before we’re through. Fifty good men of ours killed, five girls spiked in public. It’s been a nightmare.”

“We’ve only lost a few score,” Natati’s leader added, “but the financial damage is considerable. Ours sent the murrush on a spree while the Atellui bitches covered him. By the time we took them all down it had wiped out twenty blocks.” He turned on Ram. “And how were you mixed up in all this?”

“Mannagiri is no friend of mine. He took a kindling off my life. He approached us on his own, when we were passing through Atellu. We didn’t ask him to do any of this crazy shit.”

“Ah.” The man’s lip curled. “So you are not at fault either. Like your kinsman there, you are deeply involved and totally blameless. Is that the shape of it? Tell me, are any of you familiar with the concept of accountability?”

Ram met his glower with a placid face, and held it until the Natatian looked away. “I think there’s a lot of blame to go around here.” He could have said more—a lot more, and it would have been immensely satisfying to say it. But it also wouldn’t have moved the conversation where he needed it to go. “Obviously, if I knew what I know now six months ago, I’d have made some different choices. I didn’t, so I didn’t.”

“Is that all?” said the man from Shebnai.

“No. I shouldn’t have burned north Karagi, either. I was angry, and I did something stupid and cruel. I’d apologize for it, if I thought it would mean anything.”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Etana said.

“Then I apologize. I was wrong, and I’d like to do what I can to make it right.”

Etana’s frown might have softened, very slightly. Or Ram might have imagined it. “What can you do, then?”

“In truth, that be the question for us all,” Nershimi broke in. “It matters little what this man has done, or what good he purpose now. And Atellu be held by rogues, we do but chase calves while the herd strays. The bull of Atellu has worked a mighty mischief, and works more still, and I warrant yet shall work the worst of all. We cannot countenance three blooms with the Teshalun cut in half—but how think you we shall root him out?

“That, sirs, be the question.”