“You definitely weren’t falling asleep there.” Nikhil’s voice was amused. “At least try to look like a proper guard. This is a special night.”
Lord Iskar had put on a lavish celebration to mark both the end of monsoon season and the birth of his first child. His second wife had given him a son, a fat and healthy baby with silver chains around his wrists and ankles to ward off ill luck, and an ash mark on his forehead for the mothers. Apparently mother and son were glowing and in good health, and Lord Iskar had arranged baskets of fruit and fine honey pastries to celebrate. From his position outside the celebration hall, Jitesh could just about see mother and child seated on a dais through the wooden window lattice, and the proud Lord Iskar standing at their side, greeting his guests.
All of Ahiranya’s Parijati elite had come, dressed up in fine silks with gold pins in their turbans, expansive strings of pearls and rubies at their necks. Not a single highborn Ahiranyi—but that was no surprise. Jitesh had heard that Lord Iskar was becoming fast friends with some Lord Santosh from Parijat who was close to the emperor himself, and who apparently didn’t think much of people who weren’t from his homeland.
“Stand up straight,” said Nikhil. “The commander’s coming over.”
His tone was derisive. None of the men liked their new commander, who was also Parijati, raised to his position because Lord Iskar wanted to please his new friend, instead of by any particular merit.
Both Jitesh and Nikhil were used to the way of things, of course. Lords did what they did for their own gain, and normal folk just had to accept it. But it was the man himself who irritated them the most. He insisted on talking to them. Trying to be their friend.
“He’s going to talk about politics,” muttered Jitesh.
“Spirits save us,” Nikhil groaned.
Apparently, a forbidden verse from the Birch Bark Mantras had been daubed onto a temple to the mothers of flame the previous night. Something about blood and righteousness, the maid who’d seen it said, when Jitesh had asked her about it. I don’t know. You think I’ve got time for poetry, Jitesh?
Jitesh didn’t think it was a big problem. Words could be scrubbed away, after all. But the commander was furious about it and wanted everyone to know it. His men were, unfortunately, a captive audience.
“No one goes to war for poets and whores,” the Parijati commander was saying to the soldier beside him, his Zaban rough and melodious by turns, as if he didn’t know whether he wanted to speak like his compatriots or like his gem-dripping family. “Oh, people like to whine, that’s true enough, but they should be glad those women were burned. They’ll be worshipped now. Immortal.” He sniffed, as if to say, I wouldn’t have been as kind. “It was a generous death—better than having their skulls crushed.”
“Yes, Commander,” said the long-suffering soldier next to him.
“Are you listening to me?” the commander demanded. Jitesh didn’t need to look at him to know his expression was sour, mouth twisted to one side. “You provincials, you don’t know anything about how the world should be—”
The commander went silent abruptly. Jitesh nearly sighed with relief.
There was a gurgling sound. Jitesh looked over again, wondering what was amiss.
Then he saw the hilt of a blade protruding from the commander’s throat.
The soldier who had been walking beside him gave a strangled cry of horror. Nikhil fumbled for his blade and Jitesh… stood there, frozen, catching sight of a figure on the roof.
He thought he would vomit, when the man leapt down before him.
The assassin wore an old-style Ahiranyi mask, dark mahogany with large eye sockets to allow for maximum peripheral vision.
“No one will go to war for poets and whores.” He repeated the words slowly, levelly. “Isn’t that what you said?”
Their highborn commander burbled out blood. Then he crumpled to the ground.
The masked man leaned down, twisted the knife, then drew it free. The commander was still.
“Come now, friends,” the man said pleasantly. “You’re going to have to move a little faster than you are. You may be traitors to Ahiranya, but you’re still my people.” He took another step forward. “I’d like to give you a fair battle. And a fair Ahiranyi death.”
He drew a hand scythe from the back of his sash.
Nikhil finally lunged forward, sweeping his sword through the air.
The rebel slipped beneath the arc of his blade. In a motion as graceful as a dance, he moved behind Nikhil and cut his throat. The other soldier cried out, helpless, as the rebel turned and stabbed the same sickle blade through his chest.