The Constant Tower. Carole McDonnell

tower. “Yes,” he said. “Later.”

      The curtained screen of the studier’s room was being pulled aside: Lan. He glanced sideways down the passageway then entered.

      “Firstborn,” he said, looking askance at the chamber pot. “Your brothers await you near the hearth. And do not fear. Strange as it may seem, your pleas touched their hearts, struck deep. You challenged the king’s action as a true studier.” He gave Ephan a playful push. “And this one’s talk about the Unfleshed Ones.…Who knew our brothers had such guilt and superstition in them?”

      “Guilt,” Ephan remarked. “But they murdered anyway.”

      Lan wrenched the chamber pot from Psal’s hands. “We are at war, brothers. Yet, although few will say it—we know we should not have murdered innocents. But if you continue here, vomiting and weeping and dulling yourselves with pharma, you will lose your winnings. The Studier’s game must be played well. Speak now, and you will be able to protect the Iden women from more harm.”

      “I was not weeping,” Psal lied.

      “You were,” Daris said. “See, there. A tear.”

      Lan gave the chamber pot to Daris. “Take this away.” He eyed Ephan’s Rangi pouch. “Ephan, no more Rangi. Not seed, not bark. Your attempts at temporary oblivion will only prove permanent if you continue. Dull your mind with the writing of dead kings.”

      “I can hear the Full Blossom Tower.” Lan closed his eyes, listened closer. “So, that’s why you sit here weeping? Because Chief Qerys has destroyed Cassia’s tower? Silly me, I thought it was guilt.” Lan frowned. “We’re at war, Firstborn. Consider your Cassia lucky. Chief Qerys could have burned the longhouse thoroughly and entirely. Or perhaps he could have keened it to some desert where he could rape your sweetheart and the other women. Have you considered that all day the Full Blossom women have been free to leave their broken longhouse? Do they not have free will? Surely, we no longer have control over their lives. The tower is faint but it is not dead. Its denizens are alive. Chief Qerys was merciful to allow it to fly free.” Lan nodded to some unseen someone in the corridor, then lowered his voice. “Perhaps the Voca will find and save them. Many Peacock Clan women would rather live among the Voca than return to their husbands. Whatever happens, these women have received more mercy than our mothers did.”

      Ephan placed another Rangi seed in his hand, then seemed to think better of it and returned the pharma to his sack.

      Lan edged toward the keening room door, looked up and down the hallway, then returned.

      “Firstborn, I know you. Do nothing stupid. Cassia is married and has forgotten you.” He placed one arm each about the studiers’ shoulders and directed them toward the corridor. “If some ill-thought-out plan about saving Cassia dances in your minds…remove it at once. You are not as wise or as safe as you think you are. Do nothing stupid to purge your guilt. Especially, Firstborn, do nothing to destroy your chance at becoming a chief one day. The king awaits us. The Qerys as well. And there are the Orian wounded in our sick rooms to attend to. Can you two not behave like true warriors?”

      His attempt to push them forward failed and Psal did not move. Lan took a deep breath. Removing his arm from Ephan’s shoulder, he took his knife from its sheath on his thigh. The whalebone blade with its shell-encrusted ivory hilt was now within a hand’s breadth from Psal’s face. “Beware, Firstborn!” he said. “Enough of this obstinacy! Listen to me. Have I ever failed you? No, I have not. I’ve saved your life and honor more than once.”

      “Even so,” Daris said, “that gives you no right to order about the Chief Studier and Firstborn of our clan.”

      Lan gave Daris a stern look and the child immediately lowered his head.

      Lan re-sheathed his dagger and once more placed one arm around Psal’s shoulder and the other around Ephan’s. “They await you! If you do not enter the gathering room by yourselves, I will drag you there myself.” Saying that, he pushed both studiers into the corridor.

      * * * *

      Maharai stood near the king, crying and wringing her bound hands in such a wretchedly pitiful manner Psal immediately wanted to free her. But loosing the hemp cords would only annoy Nahas, and Nahas was already annoyed.

      “Latch the entrance,” Psal called to Deyn. “Let us put this ignoble day behind us.”

      But Maharai screamed as the heavy latch fell, shouting, “Murderers! Betrayers!”—echoing the chants of the Iden women in the residential area. Maharai’s panicked shrieks elicited a warning look from Nahas. In response, she struck him under his chin with her bound hands. The king flinched, then gently, almost as if she were Tanti or Ria, told her in the Peacock tongue that he would lose his patience if she continued her willfulness. She spat in his face and ran to the entrance and attempted to lift its heavy latch. That earned her a blow to her shoulder, delivered by Cyrt.

      “Already, your error shows itself,” Orian said. “Nahas, I implore you. Let these women be scattered among our sub-clans. This is what your father would do.”

      “Psallo!” Maharai knelt before Psal. “Open the door. I know you have a good heart. My sisters and I, we saw how you pleaded for us. Do not let my mother die alone. Let me go to my mother.”

      “That will not happen,” Nahas said in the Peacock language. “Learn to live without your mother. For now.”

      “If I learn to live without her, my life would be unhappy,” she said. “I don’t want an unhappy life.”

      Nahas spoke to Psal in the Wheel Clan language. “Firstborn, have you made the Iden tower’s song a priority?”

      “You didn’t answer our question about the cold climes,” Psal said.

      “Let her go to the cold climes but later than usual.” Netophah spoke from his post at a nearby window. “And return her to warmth early. As for the wake, let it be a loose wake. She should not enter any region when a skirmish is planned, and not meet with any Peacock or Wheel Clan longhouses. She should understand soon enough.”

      Psal pondered the coldly-calculated heart of rulers: A man who loves a woman would not allow her to enter the cold climes alone, but these kings and chieftains—

      “Why do you smirk, Firstborn?” Nahas interrupted Psal’s musing.

      “Smirk, Father?” Psal shifted his weight to his stronger leg. “I didn’t smirk.”

      “Ah, but you did.”

      “I was unaware of it.” Psal responded. He squeezed Maharai’s hand then wiped her tears away. “No one will hurt you here. You and your sisters are our people now.”

      “Nahas,” Ephan said. He was looking at Maharai in that inscrutable way he had. “You are king of a fierce clan and fierceness in a Wheel Clan queen is a necessity. But…have you considered that this separation from Ktwala will affect you as well?”

      The king didn’t answer Ephan’s question. He only wrenched Maharai’s hand from the Firstborn’s tunic and began dragging her down the corridor.