“And I’ll repeat your own words: There are no rules when it comes to survival.”
“What if it’s not a sham?”
His expression darkened. I realized that in all our time across the Cam Lanteux, he had never once conceded that I might really have a gift, not even when I warned him about the bison stampede. Strangely, he used rumor of my gift as an excuse to keep me alive, without admitting any belief in it himself.
“Just do as he asks,” Kaden finally said.
I offered a grudging nod, and we continued walking. It was almost as if he had a deeper regard for the gift than Griz and Finch. Was it the potential power it held that neither he nor the Komizar could control? Dihara would laugh at the idea of using the gift as the Komizar saw fit. She had balked when I suggested it. The gift cannot be summoned, it is just that, a gift, a delicate way of knowing, a way as old as the universe itself. A small sigh escaped my lips. Delicate. Oh how I wish it were a heavy spiked mace that I could wield instead.
Kaden went on to explain that the Komizar’s threats were only his way of establishing boundaries and power with me. A little respect from me could go a long way.
“And his bag of coin is a bribe? Like the stolen wine he gives to the governors? Is he trying to buy my respect?”
Kaden looked sideways at me. “The Komizar has no need to buy anything. You should know that by now.”
“The clothes I have on are just fine. I ra
ther like your shirt and trousers.”
“As do I, and my wardrobe isn’t limitless. Besides, it swims on you, and if the Komizar wants you to have new clothes, you’ll have new clothes. You don’t want to insult his generosity. You said you wanted to understand my world. The jehendra will open your eyes to more of it.”
Generosity? I tried to keep from choking. But Kaden had a certain blindness when it came to the Komizar. Or maybe he simply had the same unrealistic hope that Rafe had in his army of four—that together, against all odds, they could make everything right that was wrong in their world.
I trudged along next to him, swallowing my skepticism of the Komizar’s generosity because understanding Kaden’s world, which included the jehendra, just might help me get out of this godforsaken place. I probed about other things. “He said you were the Keep in his absence. What does that mean?”
“Not much. If a decision must be made while he’s gone, it falls to me.”
“That sounds like an important job.”
“Not usually. The Komizar keeps a tight rein on affairs that concern Venda. But sometimes a quarterlord can’t settle a dispute or a patrol has to be sent out.”
“You can give orders to raise the bridge?”
“Only if necessary. And it won’t be necessary.” The Vendan loyalty was thick in his tone.
We walked silently, and I took in his city, its hum filling my ears. It was the sound of thousands of people pressed too close, a rising rumble of tasks that were laced with urgency. Eyes raked over us from doorways and patched-together hovels. I felt the gazes on our backs long after we passed. I was sure they somehow knew I was an outsider. When the alley narrowed, Vendans traveling in the opposite direction had to squeeze past us, and the bones on their belts clattered against the stone walls. People seemed to crowd every inch of this endless city. The stories that they bred like rabbits didn’t seem far-fetched.
The alleyway finally opened up onto a wider street that buzzed with more people. The tall surrounding structures blocked the sun, and ramshackle huts balanced precariously on their ledges. The city was woven of a weft and warp that defied reason. Sometimes only a canvas wall trembling in the wind defined a living space. People lived where they could, overflowing dark smoky lanes and whittling out a space to call home.
Children followed after us, offering horse patties for fires, amulets strung on leather, or mice that wriggled in their pockets. Mice as pets? Would anyone actually pay for such a thing? But when one little boy described his as plump and meaty, I realized they weren’t being sold for pets.
We walked for at least a mile before we reached a large open market. This was the jehendra. It was the widest open space I had seen in the city thus far, as large as three tourney fields. Only a few permanent structures filled it. The rest were sewn together like a colorful quilt. Some stalls were no more than an overturned crate to sell the smallest trinket. Bells, drums, and the strings of a zitarae strummed the air in a jangling beat that matched the city.
We passed a stall with skinned lambs hanging from hooks, flies getting the first taste. A little farther down, shallow clay pots brimming with powdered herbs were set out on blankets, women offering a pinch for free to lure us their way. Across the aisle, three-sided tents showed off piles of clothing, some of it threadbare and torn. Other stalls had freshly woven fabrics that seemed to rival those brought in on the Previzi wagons. Cages of scrawny bald doves cooed across rutted pathways to pens of fresh pink piglets. I saw row after row of wares, from food, to pottery, to darker shops in the permanent structures that offered unseen pleasures behind drawn curtains.
In contrast to this city painted in soot and weariness, the jehendra teemed with color and life. Though he said nothing, I felt Kaden studying me when I stopped at stalls and examined the goods. Was he fearful I would use the word barbarian with the same distaste as I had crossing the Cam Lanteux? Some of the offerings were the humblest of efforts, rags twisted into dolls or balls of rendered fat tied up in animal entrails.
I was tempted to spend the Komizar’s coin on all manner of things besides clothing, and it was hard to walk away when earnest faces were hopeful I would buy their goods. I walked through a stall of talismans. Flat blue stones inlaid with white stars seemed to be the favored design, sometimes with a splash of red stone bleeding from the center, and I wondered if it hailed back to the story of the angel Aster.
I remembered what Kaden had said, that the one thing Venda was not short of was rock and metal. At least some Vendans didn’t seem to be short on memory either. Their stories of history might not be accurate, but at least they had them—and some, like these artisans, revered them enough to fashion jewelry into remembrances.
That was one thing I hadn’t heard this morning in Venda, the singing of remembrances that always greeted mornings throughout Morrighan. I’d never thought I would miss them, but maybe I just missed those who sang them: Pauline, Berdi, my brothers. Even my father never missed morning remembrances, singing of the braveries of Morrighan and the steadfastness of the chosen Remnant. I rubbed my thumb across the amulet, the inlaid star a remembrance as carefully wrought as any musical note.
“Here,” Kaden said, and he flipped the merchant a coin. “She’ll take that one.”
The merchant put the talisman around my neck. “I knew you’d take it,” he whispered in my ear. He stepped back, his gaze fixed on mine. His manner set me on edge, but perhaps it was the way of Vendan merchants to be so familiar.
“Wear it in good health,” he said.