The Stone Knife Page 16

  She might not be the Singer’s blood kin, but she’s Great Octave, her power second only to his, he reminded himself. He still couldn’t quite believe the old title had been brought back – and then given to her. Of all people, to her.

  There’s no telling what she must be able to talk the Singer into these days. My position as Spear – even as High Feather – could be in jeopardy. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and find myself destitute and living on the streets with the other beggars, prey to every Chooser who comes looking for offerings.

  ‘Your slave is to wait here,’ Enet’s door slave said when they reached the building.

  ‘My eagle warrior will wait outside the dining chamber,’ Pilos corrected him as Elaq bristled. ‘If your mistress tries to punish you for letting him through, send word to me and I will purchase you from this house – and not for offering,’ he added when the slave’s breathing roughened. ‘Elaq comes with me.’

  ‘As the Spear wills,’ the slave said and Pilos noted how his fingers tightened in the folds of his kilt. Even if the man took him up on his offer, it was unlikely he’d get word to Pilos’s estate in time to be saved. Pilos decided to put in a good word for him over food. Mostly, he acknowledged, to annoy Enet.

  The Great Octave herself was lounging on thickly padded mats before a long, low table. She had removed the ridiculous headdress of her station and wore instead a single turkey feather over her right ear, as if she were a warrior. Pilos’s jaw tightened at the insult, but his hand went reflexively to his right ear to check his own was still there, and then back to the fan of eagle feathers plaited into his hair. High Feather of the Melody. Proven warrior. Aristocrat. More than a match for the python coiled before him.

  He touched belly and throat before turning his gaze on the peace-weavers. They sat opposite Enet – a slender young man and an older woman with heavy muscle in her shoulders and forearms. She sat on one heel, the other foot planted before her, ready to launch to her feet. Pilos inclined his head in her direction, one killer to another.

  Each wore a full crown of turkey feathers, adding height and dignity, though the man had neither the bulk of a warrior nor the heft of a farmer. A born talker, and the blue on his forehead and lip marked him as a northern shaman. Unlikely to be a threat, unless he was also a poison-caster with the sleight of hand such people cultivated. Pilos made a conscious effort not to touch the pouch of antidotes swinging from the ornate belt around his hips.

  He sat cross-legged on the same side of the table as Enet and favoured them all with a polite smile. ‘Great Octave, I thank you for your hospitality. Peace-weavers, I am High Feather Pilos, commander of the Melody and Spear of the Singer, his military adviser. It is a pleasure to meet you here, under the song.’

  The woman twitched. ‘I am Betsu, warrior of the Yaloh,’ she said shortly. ‘This is a Tokob shaman, Tayan.’

  The man pursed his lips; Pilos had the feeling they were about to cover old ground. ‘It is true, High Feather, that I am no warrior as Betsu is. I hope my presence does not offend you. My people thought it would be better to send a different representative to offer a balanced view. I wish you the blessings of my ancestors.’

  Pilos waved away the comment as Enet chewed slowly on a slice of mango. ‘There is no offence, peace-weaver. The Great Octave is no warrior, after all. Wisdom can be found in many places, not just at the end of a war club,’ he added before she could respond.

  ‘Do you all have two roles within your society?’ Betsu asked. ‘Do you not find that hoarding all the power among a small number of people makes you vulnerable? To attack, or disease. Or corruption.’

  ‘Our elections run on eight-yearly cycles in accordance with the movements of the Great Star who appears at morning and evening. Enet and I are the only ones who hold more than one role. For me, promotion to High Feather came in the last days of our efforts to bring the Quitob under the song fourteen sun-years ago, after our previous High Feather’s death. The Singer saw fit to ratify that promotion when I returned home. I was awarded the position of Spear only three years ago.’ He stole a look at Enet. ‘And you, Spear. What did you do this last sun-year to achieve the status of Great Octave?’

  Enet was calm. ‘Served our holy lord to the best of my ability and in his interests,’ she said without pause. Pilos could have applauded. ‘But you hold two roles each as well, of course,’ she added with sweet malice, gesturing at Betsu. ‘Warrior and peace-weaver; shaman and peace-weaver. That must be a difficult compromise for someone used to getting her own way through violence. Perhaps it explains …’ She trailed off, but the muscle flickering in Betsu’s cheek told Pilos she had struck a nerve.

  ‘Yes, the Great Star,’ the shaman said eagerly in a clumsy attempt to change the subject. ‘To Tokob and Yaloh he is the Watcher. When he disappears below the horizon during the grand and little absences, he carries our prayers to the spirits awaiting rebirth and those trapped in the Underworld. Is it so with you?’ He looked at them expectantly.

  ‘It is not,’ Pilos said. ‘As five rotations of the Great Star equal eight sun-years, new appointments to the council and other important positions are made at the beginning of each cycle, but our gods are the holy Setatmeh and the Singer. It is they who deserve our worship, they who mediate with the ancestors and adore and protect the world spirit, not a light in the sky.’ He reached for a slice of monkey sprinkled with chillies. ‘There is an old story that tells of the Great Star becoming Sky Jaguar, a mythological hero who fights the lords of the Underworld. It is a good excuse for a festival to mark the beginning of the grand absence.’

  ‘And do you have many shamans? I would be pleased to meet some, to exchange knowledge of plants and medicine,’ Tayan said after a pause to put away any disappointment that the Pechaqueh did not share their primitive beliefs. ‘I am a healing shaman, though I have some skill in journeying and ritual. As well as medicine, my interest lies mostly in poisons and their antidotes.’

  Pilos paused with the meat at his lips and Tayan grinned at him, popped a slice into his own mouth and chewed with relish. The High Feather acknowledged the jest – if jest it was – with a brief nod and ate the meat, imagining Elaq’s squawk of outrage as he did.

  ‘And how go the negotiations?’ Pilos asked when they’d finished eating, making barely a dent in the feast laid before them. Enet had sent for honeypot rather than beer and Pilos cradled the tiny cup between his fingers, but didn’t drink. He wanted to keep a clear head.

  ‘They do not,’ Betsu said shortly. ‘Today we were taken to a fighting pit to watch slaves hack at each other with weapons, with little skill and less enthusiasm. A pitiful, barbaric spectacle of unnecessary death. We were subjected to much the same five days ago. Every day is filled so, with anything and everything but meaningful discussion.’

  ‘Which—’ Pilos began and then stopped. He looked to Enet, who was wearing an expression of almost constipated innocence. My fighting pit, of course, when all that were scheduled were death-fights. That is why I was invited here tonight rather than earlier, and she will not have told them who owns the pit in hopes of making us all angry and embarrassed.

  ‘Peace, Betsu,’ Tayan said, and though the words were gentle, there was tension in the shaman’s hands and jaw.

  ‘I will not peace,’ the woman snapped. ‘We came to negotiate, with a very limited timescale imposed by the Great Octave; instead we are insulted and subjected to barbarism and make no progress.’

  ‘Barbarism?’ Enet said quietly. ‘And here was me thinking you looked quite lovely in that shawl.’ She gestured gracefully to the garment draped over the Yaloh shoulders and the woman flushed a dark red. Pilos wasn’t sure what was going on, but the peace-weaver’s fury was clear to them all.

  Betsu tossed back the honeypot and slammed down the cup. ‘Now you are here, High Feather, we can finally make progress, warrior to warrior, as it should be. What will it take?’

  Pilos sipped his drink, just enough for its warmth to spread th
ough his chest and throat. The others might not understand why someone so short-tempered had been sent to make peace, but Pilos appreciated the warrior’s directness. It was refreshing to speak with someone who wanted progress. Who understood the passage of time was not a slow-moving river but a storm, moving in stutters and leaps across a landscape, hurrying and then dawdling and impossible to predict, with the will of the gods and the might of the Singer the lightning and thunder and lashing rain.

  ‘What will what take?’ he asked.

  ‘For the last fifty years, you have expanded in every direction, with our lands in the north the last to remain free. You and your song spread like maize-blight. In three generations, you have taken nearly all of Ixachipan. And as soon as you have dominion over a land, you steal its people and give it to strangers to farm. You upset the balance, not only with your expansion but with your very methods. The earth will not stand your depredations forever – the theft of tree-cover that protects the soil when the rains come, that gives homes to animals and medicine to people. When the land fails, what will you do then? When your numbers are so great that even the richness of the soil cannot sustain them, how will you proceed?’

  Pilos cocked his head. ‘You wish to discuss our farming methods?’ he asked and sipped again. ‘My concern is defence of the Empire and its expansion in accordance with our Singer’s will, not crops and fallow fields and’ – he waved his free hand – ‘the spreading of shit.’

  ‘That is not what my colleague means,’ Tayan said, swallowing hard when Enet caressed the bare arm of the slave kneeling by her side. Pilos ignored her: he knew from experience that there was no one with as much talent at getting under the skin of others as the Great Octave.

  ‘We are here to discuss how to end the war,’ Tayan finished.

  Pilos shrugged. ‘Agree to join us in the Empire. Allow us to bring you under the song, for your own benefit and to learn of the Singer’s great love for all people. If you spurn this gift we offer you, then what choice do we have but war? It is the will of the Singer and therefore to your own glorification.’ He spread scarred hands. ‘Though I am a warrior and some would say my trade is death, it would please my heart to welcome you as friends with no more blood between us.’

  ‘There will always be blood between us,’ Betsu grunted, ‘because every pyramid you build is mortared with it. Your entire society is built on death and the cold-hearted murder of innocents to feed your fucking Drowned. I said I don’t want any!’ she snapped to the slave offering her a platter of fruit, shoving him away so hard she tipped it out of his hands. He stilled in horror and then spun to Enet and prostrated himself. Pilos could smell the fear on him even from here.

  ‘The fault was mine,’ Betsu said quickly, realising her error. ‘Your … This man did nothing wrong. Forgive me.’ She reached for the fruit and Enet raised her forefinger, stilling her.

  The women watched each other for so long Pilos thought the air – and the slave between them – would catch fire. He knew Betsu would go to the slave’s defence if Enet passed judgement she didn’t like, regardless of how it affected this peace-weaving. He wondered if that was the Great Octave’s plan.

  ‘As you say,’ Enet said, cutting into Pilos’s thoughts as Tayan began to squirm in the smothering tension. ‘Clear up the mess.’ Betsu reached out again and Enet clapped once. ‘Not you, honoured guest,’ she said gently. ‘The slave must do it.’ Just the slightest emphasis on the word, enough to tighten lips and raise hackles and Pilos knew Enet had no interest in negotiating a peace. Had never had any intention of allowing this meeting or these people to be anything other than tools in her own ongoing scramble for ever-greater power.

  And there is only one status higher than Great Octave.

  ‘Now then, where were we?’ Enet continued as another slave, a girl this time, knelt next to her. Enet’s caresses of this one were more overt, challenge heating her gaze more than desire. ‘The Singer has decreed that Yalotlan and Tokoban will become part of the Empire, and so they shall. You would both do well to agree now to lay down your weapons and be brought under the song.’

  ‘You speak as if your Singer already rules us,’ Betsu said hotly. ‘He doesn’t.’

  ‘We all do the Singer’s will, you included, though you know it not,’ Enet snapped, her temper shortening as fast as Betsu’s.

  ‘We go around in circles,’ Tayan said, clearly trying for diplomacy, though his tone was defeated. He looked at Betsu with sudden wariness. ‘What proposal would you make to see the war ended?’ His hand shot out impressively fast for a non-warrior and clamped down on Betsu’s arm, his fingers digging into the corded muscle. ‘Peace, Betsu. I am just asking.’

  Enet raised her eyebrows but she answered readily enough. Pilos affected nonchalance, but he was curious what concessions she would make – without first consulting the Singer or council or, indeed, the High Feather whose warriors would oversee the transition of power and people.

  ‘The song will be heard in every part of your lands. Our pyramids will ascend the Tokob sacred hill and nestle deep in Yaloh jungle. You could potentially remain in your lands, though Pechaqueh overseers would be in charge.’ Tayan and Betsu exchanged an excited glance even as Pilos felt a slow heat of anger begin to kindle in his belly. What was this? Remain in their lands?

  ‘You will tithe half your crops each year; this is standard. Your children will be fostered in Pechaqueh cities for two Star cycles. The most apt will join the Melody as dog warriors.’

  Pilos shifted as the anger burst into flame.

  ‘You will give us full access to your songstone mines. And, of course, you will cease killing the holy Setatmeh.’

  Pilos’s anger settled. The terms were impossible and Enet knew it. That was why she’d offered them. She watched the peace-weavers with the calm, unblinking serenity of a snake.

  ‘We cannot give you an immediate answer,’ the shaman said, his voice strangled. Hollow. ‘We need time to discuss it. The issue of the Drown— of the holy Setatmeh in particular. You would have us worship these creatures who kill us? You would ask us to change our religion to suit you?’

  Enet opened her hands. ‘Of course not. Your religion is your religion, though I had not realised god-murder was part of your worship.’ She put her head on one side, quizzical.

  ‘It is not,’ Tayan said heavily. ‘It is a means of surviv—’

  ‘Then we are not asking you to change your religion, are we? In time, I hope, you will come to understand the joy of gods living among you and will see our beliefs for what they are – the truth. But either way, the killing of the holy Setatmeh would be met with the direst of consequences.’ The Great Octave picked a piece of honeycomb from a bowl, popped it in her mouth and chewed; then she leant back on one elbow, licking the stickiness from her fingers. Her smile was warm and promising.

  ‘My answer is no. The answer of every Yalotl is no,’ Betsu said. ‘I will not have this fucking song defile the forests and homes of Yalotlan. I will not give you my children for one sun-year, let alone sixteen. It is an impossibility, and, worse, you know it is. Don’t you, you fucking snake? Don’t you?’

  Pilos tensed, ready to fling himself on Enet and pull her away from the warrior who would gut her like a rabbit. His mouth opened to yell for Elaq, and it stayed open when Enet did … nothing.

  ‘If the Tokob hill, which I understand is also your goddess, is the birthplace of all creation,’ Enet said calmly, ‘then it must also be where the song came from. As such, it is no defilement to welcome it back to its place of origin, is it?’

  There was a long silence in which Tayan begged Betsu with his eyes not to provoke their host further and Pilos was sorely tempted to join him in that plea. The Yalotl drained her honeypot and slammed the cup down again, barely avoiding striking the slave who leant forward to refill it.

  ‘I have spoken with the other shamans who keep our histories,’ Tayan said eventually, an edge of desperation clear in his tone. ‘The song was no
t birthed by Malel for the song is – forgive me for speaking so bluntly – unnatural. Beautiful, yes, and clearly powerful, but it is bad magic. It is a manifestation from one of the nine levels of the Underworld. The lords of death have deceived you.’

  ‘Please, honoured guests,’ Pilos said, his own calm beginning to fray, ‘do not insult the song. We have done you the courtesy of listening to your beliefs without demur. You shame yourselves by not doing the same.’

  ‘Forgive us,’ the shaman said, blushing, and he seemed to mean it. ‘You are quite correct. To us, it is beautiful the way the blinding tree is beautiful. The song signals the end of our way of life.’

  ‘But the start of a new, greater one,’ Pilos insisted. There was something, some connection. He could feel it. Perhaps they truly could weave a peace, he and this strange, intense shaman from Tokoban.

  ‘I will cross no more words with you,’ Betsu interrupted and the moment fled like a darting hummingbird. Pilos exhaled, the heat of the moment tempered by the cold in her voice. ‘I will speak with the Singer himself and none other. I will ask him to explain why he thinks he already rules us when he does not and never will. I will discover whether he is right to be as arrogant as the great black cat or is instead merely as stupid as the sloth.’

  ‘Betsu, peace!’ the shaman gasped. ‘Spear Pilos, Great Octave, forgive—’

  ‘You dare speak so, you who wear the peace feathers?’ Enet demanded before he could finish, rising from her place on the mats without grace, so the girl slave had to scramble from her path. Betsu barked a laugh and ripped the turkey feather crown from her head as she leapt up. She threw her arms wide in challenge.

  Enet was shaking and they were all standing now, Tayan babbling something, though none of them bothered to listen. ‘When we come to your land, when we rip you from your pathetic, petty delusions of gods and monsters, when we enslave your entire populations, when we sell your children to the brothels, I will make sure to buy you first, Peace-weaver Betsu. And you will serve me in ways you cannot begin to imagine—’