Your burden will be of a different sort. For when the Goddess returns, you must gather our people to rise up with their swords, for it will mean a great threat has come, not just to the Ashkar, but to all of the world.
—Letter from Dael Benjudah to Maharam Izak Kishon
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
As Lin stepped out into the garlanded streets of the Sault, the air was heavy with the fragrance of roses and lilies. She paused a moment on the front step of the Etse Kebeth, nervously adjusting the lace at her cuffs and collar, smoothing down the lines of her blue dress. She touched the silk sachet at her throat, hoping it would distract from the pulse she was sure was beating visibly in her throat.
She had never been so nervous.
The door of the Women’s House opened behind her, releasing a flood of laughing young women. Arelle Dorin smiled at her as the group went by, headed to the festival. Their excitement was warm and palpable; on another night, Lin would have found it infectious. Now she only clenched her right hand into a fist. Silently, she said to herself: You can always change your mind, Lin. Up until the last moment, you can change your mind.
The door opened again, and this time Mariam joined Lin on the steps. Her dress was a magnificent creation of pale-blue Shenzan silk, the cuffs turned back to show saffron-yellow setino lining, striped with black. Her hair, like Lin’s, had been twisted into a thick braid dotted with flowers. Against the richness of her dress, her fragility stood out starkly: Rouge circles spotted the pale tops of her jutting cheekbones, and the stiff collar rose high around her thin neck. But the smile she gave Lin was as strong as ever.
“Our last Festival,” she said, linking her hand with Lin’s. “After this we will be officially old maids, I think.”
“Good,” Lin said. “Once one is an old maid, one can stop making an effort to be charming.”
“I am astonished.” It was Chana Dorin, joining them on the stairs. She wore her usual uniform: a gray tunic and trousers, and thick boots one could garden in. Her only concession to the importance of the evening was a silvery shawl Josit had brought back for her from the Gold Roads. “I had no idea you were making an effort to be charming, Lin.”
“Outrageous,” Lin said. “I am outraged.”
Mariam giggled, and they set off together for the Kathot, Lin detailing as they went the many ways she planned to cease making an effort to be “maidenly” once this night was through. She would dress in only torn clothes, she told her companions, and wear only muddy boots. She would buy a pet rat at the market and walk it on a silk lead. She might get some chickens as well, and she would name them all individually, and tell anyone who inquired that she sometimes sat on the eggs to see if they would hatch.
“I am impressed,” Chana said. “This is worse than your current behavior. Though not by much,” she added.
“You should talk,” Mariam said. “Your boots are always muddy, Chana.”
Lin smiled at the good-natured squabbling, but only half her attention was on it. As they neared the center of the Sault, Marivent seemed to loom above them, hovering against the darkness of the sky, white as a second moon.
Tonight, Lin knew, was the welcoming banquet for the child Princess from Sarthe; it was why Mayesh would not be attending the Festival. In past years, this would have angered Lin—that her grandfather could not even be bothered to turn up for the most important religious event of the year in the Sault because his loyalty was to Marivent and not his people.
Now she was only glad he would not be there. She was not sure she could go through with her plan if he was watching.
They had reached the illuminated Kathot, brilliant as a live ember among banked coals. Lamps of hammered silver swayed among the branches of the trees, and candles burned in cups of colored wax paper all up and down the long tables with their coverings of white cloth.
Chana cut through the crowd, pulling Lin and Mariam after her. For once, Lin was glad to be led. She felt naked in the crowd, as if her intentions were surely visible on her face. Stop it, she told herself. These were all people she knew, all familiar faces. There was Rahel, laughing among the other married women; nearby Mez sat tuning his lior at a circular table, surrounded by several other musicians. In addition to the narit—young women like Mariam and herself, all in blue dresses—there were young men of marriageable age, awkward in rarely worn finery. They sprawled at long tables, joking with one another and drinking reddish-purple wine from silver cups that had been liberally distributed by the Sault elders.
The Festival was a celebration, Lin reminded herself; people were supposed to be relaxed here, and happy. She forced herself to smile.
“Stop that.” Mariam shook her arm. “Why are you glaring?”
Chana had guided them to a space under the fig trees where they had a good view of the square. Directly in front of them was a cleared space scattered with petals, meant for gathering and dancing. At the foot of the Shulamat stairs a raised plinth had been erected. Upon it stood a purpose-built wooden chair intended for the Maharam, garlanded with flowers. When the festival was over, the dais and the chair would be broken down and burned, the sweet scent of almond wood filling the air.
“I’m not glaring,” Lin whispered. “I’m smiling.”
“You could have fooled me.” Mariam ducked out of the way as Orla Regev, another of the Sault elders, rushed up to Chana for a whispered consultation. Someone, it seemed, had garlanded the Maharam’s chair with hyacinth flowers, when everyone knew they were supposed to be roses. Also, the wine had been put out far too early, and many of the older men were drunk, and some of the younger ones, too.
“Oh, poor dear,” said Mariam sympathetically as Chana was whisked away by Orla, complaining as she went that the Maharam was unlikely to notice what kind of flowers were on his chair, and the Goddess, blessed be the Name, unlikely to care. “Why can’t Orla leave her be to enjoy herself?”
“Because this is how Orla enjoys herself,” Lin said just as a young man approached them, smiling. Lin recognized him immediately as Natan Gorin, Mez’s older brother, the one who had just returned from the Gold Roads.
Like the rest of the young men at the Festival, he wore plain white cambric with silver embroidery, a crown of green spikenard leaves on his head. （For a moment, Lin was reminded of another crown, a gold circlet with winged sides, gleaming against dark curls.） His hair was coppery, his skin sun-browned. He smiled easily, extending a hand marked with the black-ink tattoos of the Rhadanite traders to Mariam.
“I happen to have a friend among the musicians”—he winked over at Mez—“and have been informed that the dancing is about to begin. If you would join me?”
Blushing, Mariam took Natan’s hand. Mez greeted this with a trill of the lior, and a moment later the music had swelled, and Natan and Mariam were dancing.
A swell of happiness cut through Lin’s nerves. She looked over at Mez, who was grinning. Had he asked Natan to dance with Mariam? It didn’t matter, Lin told herself; Mariam was happy just to be dancing. Her face was shining, and in the moonlight she did not look the least bit tired or ill.
Other couples had begun to join them. Lin leaned back against the rough bark of the tree trunk, letting the moment carry her. There was laughter all around her, and the brightness of a community that was glad for an excuse to come together. Something cold snaked under her ribs, even as she watched Mariam. A feeling of dread.