He thought of the lies—and truths—he’d had to pay to learn their secrets. The discontent among Ahiranya’s highborn. The threads of unease that united them, and their merchants and warriors and potters and healers. The way the mishandling of the rot, the deaths of farmers, the banning and debasement of Ahiranyi language and literature, had all culminated in the work of an unknown number of masked, armed rebels who murdered Parijatdvipan officials and merchants with pointed viciousness, and a much vaster number of poets and singers who spread the image of a free Ahiranya.
The poet and his followers were not the masked rebels of Ahiranya’s forest. But they were part of the soul of the resistance against Parijatdvipa, bound to highborn funders, and Rao had hoped they would have use to him.
Now, unfortunately, their use was gone.
A noise. Rao raised his head.
“You there,” said the soldier. He wore Parijat’s white and gold, with the regent’s mark on his turban. His booted footsteps were heavy. “What are you doing here?”
Rao hadn’t heard him approach. Perhaps he’d drunk slightly more of the arrack than he thought he had.
“L-looking for the way out,” Rao slurred. “Sir.”
He could see the soldier weighing up his options: leave the drunken sot he’d found in the hallway to be thrown out by one of the brothel’s capable guards, or drag him into the salon to be interrogated alongside the poet and his acolytes? Rao saw the soldier’s interest in him waver. Rao was a drunk fool, there was nothing of note about him—he’d made sure of that—and how likely was a Parijati man to be involved in the Ahiranyi resistance? He would vomit, perhaps, or cry. Much better to leave him.
Rao gave a drunken hiccup and tried to straighten up. The soldier rolled his eyes, muttered something unsavory under his breath, and turned to go.
Behind them, in the salon, a woman screamed. One of the men began to shout, then went abruptly silent, as a thud echoed down the corridor. Thud of flesh, of metal, of blood.
The soldier reached reflexively for his own sword. He looked at Rao once more. The shock of the noise had made Rao straighten up, his spine iron, his eyes wide. He was holding himself far too steady.
The soldier’s eyes narrowed.
“You,” he said. “Get up.”
Rao swallowed. Searched for the slur his voice needed. “What—”
He had no more time to dissemble. The soldier grabbed him by his arm, wrenching him up so suddenly that if Rao hadn’t been naturally light on his feet the movement would have dislocated his shoulder. The soldier dragged him through the corridor and into the salon.
He was flung to the floor. He just about managed to get his hands under him before his nose cracked down on stone. Scrambling up, he was shoved back down by the boot of the same soldier who’d found him.
A dozen sets of eyes turned on him: a handful of the regent’s imperial soldiers, dressed in Parijatdvipan white and gold, sabers at their belts; a huddle of terrified women, holding one another; a few men still in their shawls, one slumped to the ground, his throat cut, his blood pooling on the floor.
And the poet, Baldev. He was an older man, heavyset as only the wealthy could afford to be, with a square jaw and nose that was a firm, aquiline blade. That noble face of his was a rictus of fury, and of fear.
“I found this one outside,” the soldier who’d dragged Rao in said gruffly.
“One of yours, is he?” This was asked of Baldev, by another soldier.
Baldev looked at Rao.
Rao thought of the way he had eked a space out for himself at these salons, slowly coaxing one of Baldev’s followers into extending him an invitation. He thought of the questions he’d asked Baldev, once the poet’s mistrust had thawed somewhat and he’d begrudgingly come to believe that Rao was not a man with ill intentions and was merely what he’d claimed to be: a Parijati man with a scholar’s bent, high ideals, and a desire to see Ahiranya free.
He thought of what Baldev had revealed to him. The secret half shared after the last salon.
I know someone who may be able to help you.
“I do not know this man,” Baldev said, looking Rao up and down with visible scorn.
“Are you sure of that?”
“I do not consort with men who are not of my own people,” said Baldev. His voice was sonorous, a rumbling velvet made for poetry and politics. Now, it was weighty with deliberate distaste for the drunk Parijati man sprawled upon the floor—and for the soldiers surrounding him. “This house is full of depraved Parijati lechers like him. By all means, arrest them all. I would be glad to see my land free of them. He is no acolyte of mine.”
The women, the men, all studiously avoided looking his way. He returned the favor and stared at the floor.
“Fine,” said another soldier. He spoke softly, but the cuff of silver on his upper arm marked him as the commander. His eyes were unblinking. “I have a few simple questions for you, poet. Answer with innocence, and you may go.”
“A riddle, is it?” Rao glanced up and saw that Baldev’s smile was mirthless. It was only the puckered tightness of that smile that told Rao he was afraid at all.
